His 261.01: Twentieth Century U.S., 1914-present
Spring 2009
Prof. McClymer (x7278), Founders 112
Office hours: Monday, 8:00-10:00; Wednesday, 8:00-12:00; and by appointment

Description: This course explores the impact of modernity upon American life and culture. Modernity, as we will discover over the course of the semester, is a collective noun that refers to a wide variety of changes in the economy, in politics, in religion, in lifestyles, and in expectations. In seeking to make sense of "modern America" we will emphasize cultural changes ranging from the sexual "revolutions" of the 1920s and 1960s and the opposition each engendered to the rise of a consumer ethos and its corrosive impact upon traditional American (and Judeo-Christian) values.

Modernity undermined more than traditional values; it also undercut the racial hierarchy. Jimmy Johnson, composer of the iconic melody of the 1920s, was an African American stride pianist whose full name was James P. Johnson. James P., as he was known to fellow musicians, was the best piano player in New York during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Duke Ellington, who was more than qualified to judge, said James P. was the best he ever heard. In addition to the "Charleston," Johnson wrote symphonic poems, marches, and other works. The royalties from the "Charleston," he said, paid the rent and the groceries, leaving him free to compose. We will listen to more of his work later in the semester. If we listen carefully, we will hear that he was a major influence on George Gershwin who used to spend the wee hours in Harlem listening to Johnson and his contemporaries in so-called cutting contests. Piano players would gather in some club or other after hours and challenge each other to outdo the last performer. Ellington recalled that they never let James P. play until sunrise. James P. would play, and everyone would go home, Ellington wrote. No one would dare to try to outplay James P.

The slide show uses images from "Our Dancing Daughters" (1928), the film that made Joan Crawford a star. Click on the image of the sheet music to hear James P. Johnson play the "Charleston."

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers were a premiere swing dance troupe of the 1930s and 1940s. Here we see a scene from the 1941 film "Hellzapoppin'." The Lindy Hop got its name from Lindberg's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927. Nonetheless it orginated in the black community. Whites quickly adopted it and its close relative, the Jitterbug.

Little Richard likes to call himself the "originator" of Rock 'n Roll. Actually, like jazz, rock has many parents. Even so, credit where credit is due. The link takes us to a movie scene featuring a late afternoon television dance show. "Dick Clark's Bandstand" became the most successful of these but this one features disc jockey Allen Freed. In this scene a black couple shows white teens how to do the new dance. Note that the same motif is used in "Hellzapoppin'." Whites form the audience as blacks show them how it is really done. Whites, on the other hand, clearly remain in control.

Format: The course will function as a workshop. We will explore primary sources bearing upon key events and developments in addition to reading secondary accounts by historians.

Prerequisites: None.

Requirements: Students will give several oral reports over the course of the semester in addition to submitting notes on the readings via email one hour prior to class. I will edit and post these to the class web site, and will use them to organize class discussions. Students will also complete a final project on a topic of their choosing. There will be no quizzes or examinations.

Grading: The three oral reports will count for 15 points each. The emailed notes will count for 40, and the final project for 25. This adds up to 110%. I will appropriately reduce the weight of your lowest grade. Note: You have complete control over the grade for the emailed notes. Do them conscientiously and get them in on time (one hour before class) and you will receive the full 40 points.

Readings: Most of the required reading is available online, including an optional digital textbook created by Steven Mintz (now of Columbia University) at the University of Houston. You should read the Mintz textbook as needed, e.g., to acquire background information. We will begin by reading Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (University of California Press, 1985). This will serve as an introduction both to key themes of the course and to the historian's craft.

Attendance: Because of the centrality of class participation and of student reports, attendance is mandatory. If you must miss a class, please contact the instructor in advance.

Plagiarism: This is the use of someone else's work without crediting that person. It is a form of cheating. We will follow college policy in handling cases of suspected plagiarism.

Disabilities: Any student with a learning or other disability that necessitates special treatment, e.g., extra time for completing assignments, should contact the instructor as soon as possible so that we can work out the necessary arrangements.

Materials: Marchand, Advertising the American Dream + on-line materials, many created by Prof. McClymer.

Class Schedule

Jan. 20: Introduction

MODERNITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS: A FRAME FOR UNDERSTANDING 20TH CENTURY AMERICA

Change can be cumulative, as with urbanization or the emergence of a consumer ethos in which the pursuit of pleasure is a legitimate, even respectable, motive. Historians looking for origins invariably disagree. Did the 1920s ursher in a new set of attitudes towards sexuality? Or was there a pre-War sexual revolution? Historians cannot easily determine answers to such questions. What we can identify more readily are those historical moments when people realize that something decisive has changed. For Americans, and westerners generally, World War I and its aftermath, was such a moment. One easy way to begin to grasp the shift is to look first at a "Gibson Girl," the idealized beauty of the 1900s and 1910s, and then at a flapper, the ideal woman of the twenties. We can start at the top and work our way down. First the hair. Pre-War beauties, and women generally, had very long hair, often reaching to the small of the back, which they wore up. "Letting your hair down" was a prelude to intimacy. The "Gibson Girl" had an hourglass figure, i.e., full bosom and hips and a "wasp waist." Corsetry was the key. The "flapper" favored shifts, dresses that did not disclose curves. Women with full busts purchased breast restrainers from Sears and other retailers to attain the ideal boyish figure. Dresses had come to the ankle. With the war and shortages of fabric, they rose to mid-calf. The "flapper" wore dresses that came to the knee. She sometimes rolled her stockings below the knee, something likely to scandalize her mother who considered that "fast," i.e., indicating sexual availability.

"The Sweetest Story Ever Told," by Charles Dana Gibson (Collier's Weekly, August 13, 1910) — Gibson created the "Gibson Girl," who epitomized the ideal female beauty of pre-War America. He had a large number of imitators, each of whom strove to create a "Gibson Girl" of his own. Magazine covers of the period almost invariably featured a "Gibson Girl" imitation. At right is a portrait of Louise Brooks, perhaps the epitome of the "flapper." Brooks began as a dancer, became a showgirl in the "Zeigfeld Follies," had a featured role in a Broadway musical, starred in several silent films, and then went to Germany where she made "Pandora's Box," a film so controversial it was not shown in the United States until the 1980s.

Let's take a few minutes to "read" an advertisement for "Ivory" soap that appeared in Photoplay, a movie fan magazine, in 1927. As you look at the ad, ponder these questions:

Follow Up: for our next class, read Roland Marchand's chapter on "Advertisements as Social Tableaux" (pp. 164-205) and examine the "Modernizing Mother" ad campaign the J. Walter Thompson agency created for Modess Sanitary Napkins in 1929.

Episode One set the overall theme. "Millions of daughters," the copy began, "are teasing mothers back to youth—slamming doors on the quaint ways of the nineties. One by one the foolish old drudgeries and discomforts pass." Life, under the leadership of these daughters, was becoming "easier, more pleasant—sensibly modern." Much of what Marchand analyzes in this chapter is how advertisers, in his view, sought to define modernity for women in terms that did not threaten established gender roles. Since he does not discuss the Modess campaign, it provides an opportunity to apply his ideas to fresh material. Select three specific aspects of his discussion and apply them to specific ads from this campaign. In what ways does Marchand's analysis deepen, complicate, and/or confuse your understanding of the ad campaign.

Send me your notes one hour before class via email.

Another way to appreciate how rapidly cultural change arrived is to compare popular music. We will start with Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899), the iconic masterpiece that captivated the nation in the pre-War era. It drew upon several musical traditions including minstrel songs, marches, and the syncopated rhytmns that African American musicians were experimenting with in the 1890s, especially in Chicago and St. Louis. The song took its name from a "social club" (aka brothel) in Sedalia, Missouri where Joplin briefly worked as a piano player. Joplin claimed Chopin as a major influence. Like Chopin he sought to create popular music that would nevertheless reach the level of high art. Virtually no one at the time took Joplin's claim seriously, not with every composer trying to copy his tunes, not with every amateur piano player struggling to play them. Now Joplin's work is seen as indeed in the same class as Chopin's.

Next comes someone no one has ever compared to Chopin, Blind Blake and his version of "He's in the Jailhouse Now." Blake has had a strong influence on guitarists from the mid-1920s to the present. The song was written by country singer/songwriter Jimmie Rogers around 1930. The version by the "Soggy Bottom Boys" became popular when the Coen Brothers used it in "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Blake's version is a nice example of the cross-fertilization of musical styles. He transmutes a so-called "old-timey" tune into a syncopated blues.

Even though Jelly Roll Morton started recording before Blind Blake, his music takes us to the transition from ragtime to jazz (originally jass). The word ragtime comes from "ragged time," the fact that the right and left hands play different tempos. Jass is a more mysterious term. Some theorize that it comes from "Jasmine," an inexpensive perfume supposedly favored by whores in New Orleans' famed red-light district Storyville. The fact that "jass" and then "jazz" were African-American slang terms for sexual intercourse lends some credibilty to the theory. Jelly Roll always claimed that his name did not refer to the pastry. It was, he boasted, his signature move in making love. "Black Bottom Stomp" is a good example of early jazz. The Black Bottom was a popular dance of the day, like the Cake Walk.

Speaking of the Cake Walk, we can listen to the "Clarence Williams Five" featuring two of the giants of early jazz, Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, playing "Cake Walkin' Babies from Home."

The emergence of the "modern young woman" and the increasing influence of African-Americans on American culture generally were highly controversial aspects of a far more general transformation — Modernization. The nature and impact of modernization are the central preoccupations of this course.


Henry Ford's River Rouge factory, the largest manufacturing facility in the world, c. 1915

Jan. 22: Discussion of Marchand and "Modernizing Mother" ad campaign; introduction to World War I

The watershed event that announced the new era was the Great War.

The blow that hurled the modern world on its course of self-destruction was the Great War of 1914-18. — Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence (2001), 683

This is not something you would have guessed from the most popular songs of the era. George M. Cohan wrote the great patriotic anthem of the war years, "Over There." Click on the cover image to hear Billy Murray's hit recording from 1917.

"Over There"

Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Take it on the run,
On the run, on the run.
Hear them calling, you and me,
Every son of liberty.
Hurry right away,
No delay, go today,
Make your daddy glad
To have had such a lad.
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud her boy's in line.
(chorus sung twice)

Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Johnnie show the Hun
Who's a son of a gun.
Hoist the flag and let her fly,
Yankee Doodle do or die.
Pack your little kit,
Show your grit, do your bit.
Yankee to the ranks,
From the towns and the tanks.
Make your mother proud of you,
And the old Red, White and Blue.
(chorus sung twice)

Chorus
Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word over there -
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming
Ev'rywhere.
So prepare, say a pray'r,
Send the word, send the word to beware.
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back till it's over
Over there.

The lyrics drew upon Cohan's earlier hit, "Little Johnny Jones" from his Broadway hit show, "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

The other big hit of the day was Irving Berlin's "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," from a show he wrote to raise money for Army recreation centers, "Yip, Yip, Yaphank." Yaphank is a town on Long Island where Berlin did his basic training. He volunteered to serve despite his very poor eyesight which otherwise would have kept him out of the Army. He cut a patriotic anthem out of the show because he thought it too sentimental. It stayed in a file drawer until the approach of WWII when Kate Smith introduced "God Bless America." Click on the picture of Berlin to hear Eddie Cantor's hit recording of 1918. The sound quality leaves something to be desired.

 

"Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning"

First Verse:
The other day I chanced to meet a soldier friend of mine,
He’d been in camp for sev’ral weeks and he was looking fine;
His muscles had developed and his cheeks were rosy red,
I asked him how he liked the life, and this is what he said:

First Chorus:
“Oh! how I hate to get up in the morning,
Oh! how I’d love to remain in bed;
For the hardest blow of all, is to hear the bugler call;
You’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get up
You’ve got to get up this morning!
Some day I’m going to murder the bugler,
Some day they’re going to find him dead;
I’ll amputate his reveille, and step upon it heavily,
And spend the rest of my life in bed."

Second Verse:
A bugler in the army is the luckiest of men,
He wakes the boys at five and then goes back to bed again;
He doesn’t have to blow again until the afternoon,
If ev’ry thing goes well with me I'll be a bugler soon.

Second Chorus:
“Oh! how I hate to get up in the morning,
Oh! how I’d love to remain in bed;
For the hardest blow of all, is to hear the bugler call;
You’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get up
You’ve got to get up this morning!
Oh! boy the minute the battle is over,
Oh! boy the minute the foe is dead;
I'll put my uniform away, and move to Philadelphia,
And spend the rest of my life in bed."

Sometimes instead of "oh! boy . . . " these lines are substituted.

Some day they're going to find the bugler,
Some day they're going to find him dead;
And then I'll get that other pup,
The guy who wakes the bugler up,
And spend the rest of my life in bed.

It is worth emphasizing that George M. Cohan was an Irish Catholic as was Billy Murray and that Irving Berlin (born Israel Baline) was a Russian Jew. Eddie Cantor's parents, who died when he was only a year old, were immigrant Jews. He changed his name from Kantrowicz, the name of his maternal grandparents who raised him. A cantor is a singer of sacred Jewish songs. The war intensified anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-immigrant hatreds. But, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and blacks continued to help shape the popular culture. Lt. James Reese Europe and his Harlem Hellfighters Orchestra, for example, helped launch the popularity of jazz with "Memphis Blues."

We can start our exploration of the impact of WWI with the numbers. Look especially at the first and last columns. France mobilized 8,410,000. 6,160,800 were killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or went missing in action. More than three in four, that is, were casualties. An identical percentage of Russian soldiers met the same fate. Germany mobilized 11,000,000. 7,142,588 or almost two in three were killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or missing in action. The proportion in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a daunting nine in ten. Is it any wonder that the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed? So did the German Empire. And the Russian. And the Ottoman (listed as Turkey on the table). Compared to these losses, the United States got off easy. Nonetheless 126,000 Americans died; another 234,300 were wounded. Only 4,500 were taken prisoner or went missing in action. For Europeans, the war eliminated an entire generation of young men. For Americans it was less traumatic but still deeply disillusioning.

The United States and western European countries were highly self-satisfied before the war. Science was discovering new wonders. Technology, epitomized by Henry Ford's massive River Rouge auto assembly plant, was transforming daily life. Every year brought new conveniences. Furthermore, after a century of revolutions and civil wars, western societies had seemingly solved their political dilemmas. All had some kind of parliamentary system. All had some version of universal male suffrage. All provided basic civil liberties. Standards of living were rising. Life expectancies were improving.

Then came the war.

Oral Report One: It started with a bungled assassination plot that nonetheless succeeded. (It is worth reading about the killing of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. It will give you some idea of the sometimes overwhelming importance of dumb luck in history.)

Oral reports will be a regular feature of this course. They should be 10-12 minutes long. They should be detailed. Usually the report will be a narrative, taking a "here's what happened" approach. You need not limit yourself to using the materials I provide on the topic. If you decide to use a search engine in your hunt for additional information, you should consult "Surfing and Searching On-line: Some Suggestions" You can do your reports as a PowerPoint presentations.

For many years before 1914, Great Power rivalries in Europe over old animosities and new challenges (quest for colonies, commercial markets) resulted in an arms buildup and military alliances. England, France, and Russia (the Triple Entente) were committed to a joint defense against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. (Italy would break away from the Triple Alliance and ally with Great Britain and France in the secret Treaty of London of l9l5.) These military alliances, although created for the defensive purpose of balancing the power of adversaries, did not prevent the outbreak of the "Great War" in the summer of 1914.

The military key to this disaster was the way European strategists interpreted the lessons of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. In that conflict Prussia had been able to mobilize (i.e., get its troops into position, organize supplies, stockpile weapons and ammunition) much more rapidly than France and had used that advantage to crush unprepared French armies. Every power was determined not to repeat France's mistake. This meant that, once any country began to mobilize, both its allies and its potential adversaries had to do the same. The fear, shared by all, was that the country that mobilized first would attack since that would give it an enormous advantage which it would lose if it did not. As events turned out, once the process of mobilization began, there was no effective way to call a halt.

World War I was a "Total War," mobilizing civilians as well as the military. Modern technology produced new weapons of mass destruction: submarines, tanks, machine guns, airplanes, and huge artillery pieces. It did not produce new strategies. Initially, everyone expected a short war since the Franco-Prussian War had been quite brief. Instead, WWI turned out to be like the first modern war, the American Civil War. On the eastern front, the German armies inflicted horrific losses upon the Russians but were unable to achieve a decisive victory. On the western front the two sides literally dug in, in vast networks of trenches separated by a barren "No Man's Land." Each took turns attacking. The battles would begin with massive artillery bombardments intended to "soften up" the enemy. Then infantrymen would "go over the top" of their own trenches and charge across "No Man's Land." Machine gun fire cut them down like wheat. Thousands died in a morning or an afternoon. Soon enough the enemy would try the same thing. With the same results. The slaughter was as mindless as it was seemingly endless.

As the war dragged on, people became more appalled. American painter John Singer Sargent's "Gassed" (1918) captured some of the horror. Click on the image to see a larger version.


So did British poet Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est." The Latin title comes from the Roman poet Horace who celebrated the ideal that "it is sweet and proper to die for one's country." That was, Owen wrote, "the old lie."

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Civilian populations were called upon to make heroic sacrifices for the war effort and were often subject to bombardment. Since the sides were of relatively equal strength, a lengthy war required the blockade of sea lanes, and even the interdiction of food as contraband. Virtually everything was rationed. Civilians were exposed to unrelenting propaganda that demonized the enemy and lionized "our boys."

If the Wilson administration, like other governments, called on its citizens to rally 'round the flag, it did nothing to tamp down rising racial, ethnic, and religious hatreds.

Bad as the war was, the immediate postwar years were almost as bad.

Jan. 27: Oral reports one through three; introduction to topics for oral reports four through nine; introduction to Advertising the American Dream.

The Newell-Emmett Co. ad agency sells itself, 1933
The Battle of Product against Product is an ancient one. But now Industry fights Industry for the consumer's unwilling dollar. There's Steel, that old and mighty Giant, going forth to battle Wood for the housing business. There's Aluminum, that vigorous youngster who thinks his Alloys are now good enough to appropriate many of Steel's old jobs. There's Copper, challenging all three. . .

It may be significant of times like these that among our clients we should number certain of the large brand-new advertisers AND several of the important trade associations.

We writed pointed "product" advertisements around a cigarette, yet we think in terms of a whole industry's underlying problems as we work for the association of America's soap manufacturers. We chart and develop markets for a maqnufacturer of rugs. Yet, as we plan advertisements for an association of mutual savings banks, we work with the broad, economic forces that now grip America.

The close-up combat of the commercial front lines... The deep basic strategy of the coming new warfare between industries. . . Here at Newell-Emmett are both. To know both thoroughly is not too much preparation for the next decade.
Fortune, Vol. 7, Jan. 1933, p. 85.

Advertising agency executives and their creative staffs, Roland Marchand maintains, saw themselves as "apostles of modernity." They played the crucial intermediary role in the complex relationships between producers and consumers, or so they thought. They would "educate" the consumer about her own wants. They would "educate" producers about how to get consumers to want their products.

We will use Marchand's ground-breaking study to examine the emergence of "modern" America. We will read Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 very carefully. And we will read it in tandem with some of the ads Marchand discusses and some that he does not. Some of the ads we will explore come from an on-line archive Marchand created at the University of California at Davis. Others will come from the on-line archive of the J. Walter Thompson Co., the largest ad agency in the country in the 1920s and 1930s, at Duke University. Tobacco.org, an anti-smoking association, put a collection of cigarette ads on-line. The AdArt Gallery contains ads for soda, beer, movies, and much, much more. We will begin with a collection of ads for Lifebuoy soap that I have compiled.

Follow-up: For Jan. 29 read Marchand, "Introduction," pp. xv-xxii, and "Keeping the Audience in Focus," pp. 52-87 and McClymer's analysis of the Lifebuoy soap campaign. Submit one hour before class responses to the following:
  • Marchand wrote that he "sought to interpret some of the major contributions advertising has made to the vocabulary and syntax of American common discourse, and thus to the framing of basic social assumptions." He did not, he continues, try "to make a case for the probable impact of specific ads, or even of single campaigns." What did he mean by American common discourse? How did he seek to understand advertising's impact on the "framing of basic social assumptions?
  • McClymer does seek to explore how a single ad campaign drew upon the vocabulary and syntax of one dimension of American discourse, the ongoing conversation about eugenics. What does he claim to find?
  • In what ways does "Keeping the Audience in Focus" deepen, complicate, and/or confuse your understanding of the Lifebuoy campaign? of the eugenics movement?

Jan. 29: Oral reports four through six; discussion of the Lifebuoy campaign and of the methodological issues involved in using advertisements as historical evidence. Notes

Follow-up: For Feb. 3 read Marchand, "Abandoning the Great Genteel Hope: From Sponsored Radio to the Funny Papers," 88-116, and "The Consumption Ethic: Strategies of Art and Style," 117-163. At right Fred Allen seeks to kiss and make up with Jack Benny. Both had popular comedy shows and, in the interest of ratings, pretended to feud.

In addition, browse through one of these online collections:

Submit responses to one of the following questions:

  • How, according to Marchand, did advertisers learn to air commercials on the radio? What approaches did they use? Choose specific radio programs where these techniques are employed. In effect, those who choose this question will be creating an audio archive.
  • How, according to Marchand, did advertisers adopt the comic strip format? What specific features did they appropriate? what specific advantages did they see in those specific features? Choose specific ads he discusses; many are available at his on-line archive. Then choose specific comic strips. In effect, those who choose this question will create an on-line gallery of comic strips and comic-strip-inspired ads.
  • How, according to Marchand, did Modernism in art effect advertising? Choose several ads he discusses and several corresponding works of art; many of the ads are available at his on-line archive. In effect, those who choose this question will create an on-line gallery of Modernist art and Modernist-influenced ads.

Feb.3: Oral reports seven through nine; discussion of student galleries.

You will note that I use the term consumption ethos rather than ethic. The concepts are related but not identical. An ethic is a set of behavioral norms rooted in a moral code. An ethos is a set of expectations about how the world works. The "Great Parables" express an ethos, I would argue.

I would also quarrel with one of Marchand's parables, that of the "democracy of goods." He suggests that ads that pitched soap, for example, by claiming that "now anyone can afford" the soap used by debutantes, promised consumers that they were the debutantes' equals. This, I argue, is true but only in the most literal sense. What the ads sold, beyond soap, was fantasy. The "Judy O'Gradies" of the world did not for a moment think that they were on the same social plane as the debutantes who used Woodbury soap. Instead they daydreamed about being debutantes. In addition to Marchand, examine either the Woodbury debutante ads or the cigarette ads in the 1920s.

Follow-up: For Feb. 5 read Marchand, "The Great Parables," pp. 206-234, and revisit "The Consumption Ethic."

Submit one hour before class responses to the following:

  • Make Marchand's case for the "democracy of goods" by analyzing one of the Woodbury or cigarette ads.
  • Make a case against Marchand's parable with the same ad by assessing the following:
    • What advantages, according to the ad, do the debutante or the cigarette smoker in the ad possess?
    • What advantages accrue to Judy O'Grady?
    • What qualities led the debutante or the smoker to choose this particular soap or cigarette?
    • Why should the consumer follow the lead of the debutante or smoker?


Feb. 5: Discussion of the "great parables."

Follow-up: For Feb. 10 read McClymer, "Revues and Other Vanities: The Commodification of Fantasy" through "Taming the Semi-Bacchante of Main Street." At left is a scene from the Eddie Cantor movie "Roman Scandals" (1933). This was before the Movie Production Code went into effect. Once it did, diaphanous gowns disappeared. Blackface, on the other hand, did not violate the code. Marchand discusses the role of gender but has little to say about sexuality. Sex, however, sells now and it sold then. McClymer explores a variety of sexual fantasies and their more than occasional influence on behavior.

Submit one hour before class responses to the following:

  • As McClymer points out, censorship was a central topic of debate throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. The debate raged over movies, theatrical productions, beauty contests, and beach wear. What were some of the concerns of those advocating censorship?
  • Earl Carroll drew a direct link between his revues and those "brave" youth defying beach censors. McClymer seeks to explicate the links between the apparently widespread female aspiration to become a beauty pageant contestant and the glamorization of showgirls and actresses, on the one hand, and shifting notions of proper behavior on the other. What are some of the links he claims to find?

Feb. 10: Music for the day is Ravel's "Bolero," the piece played during the "Peacock" dance in the Earl Carroll's "Vanities"; discussion of "Revues and Other Vanities"; showing of "Black and Tan Fantasy" (1929), one of the first films starring black performers made by a major Hollywood studio (RKO). The Cotton Club, scene of much of the film, was itself a fantasy of the Old South brought to life in Harlem. The cliente was all white; the waitstaff all black. The female performers were all light-skinned, "high yellows" as they were known in the African American community. Customers sipped their mint juleps while black minions catered to their every wish and light-skinned — "copper skinned beauties" according to the club's ads — showgirls in skimpy costumes danced for their delectation. There were two shows, at midnight and at 2:00 a.m. The idea was that Broadway theatre-goers would end their evenings in Harlem. No wonder Duke Ellington titled his piece "Black and Tan Fantasy." One does wonder how many of the customers of the Cotton Club recognized the tune's opening. It is a paraphrase of the second movement of Chopin's Second Piano Sonata, the Funeral March. Ellington's orchestra played the Cotton Club for several years. He was billed as "the greatest living master of jungle music." Other black performers had to endure similar labels. Only by catering to white fantasies could they succeed. Playing at the Cotton Club got Ellington a regular gig on the RCA radio network and thus a national audience. Meanwhile he commented on the Cotton Club, "jungle music,"and white fantasies of blacks in his own "Fantasy."

Notes

Follow-up: For Feb. 12 read the rest of "Revues and Other Vanities."

Feb. 12: Happy Lincoln's Birthday — today is the 200th anniversary of his birth; we start with the 1927 recording of "Black and Tan Fantasie" by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra; "The Rape of Rhapsody" from "Murder at the Vanities"; discussion of student responses; selected scenes from "Tarzan: The Ape Man"

Introduction to "The New Negro" via the Tulsa Riot of 1921 and the Harlem Renaissance. — Oral Report Ten

The Crisis was published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Its April 1923 issue celebrated the artistic achievements of African Americans.

Follow-up: Choose a poem and an article from the Survey Graphic special issue on Harlem. This magazine was written by and for social reformers. This issue marked the awakening of white Americans to the Harlem Renaissance.

Submit one hour before class responses to the following:

  • What poem did you choose? How specifically can we use it as historical evidence about the "New Negro"?
  • What article did you choose? How specifically can we use it as historical evidence about the "New Negro"?

Feb. 17: oral report ten; discussion of the "New Negro"; music from the Harlem Renaisance

Stefan Kanfer, "The Americanization of Irving Berlin," City Journal (Spring 2002) — Oral Report Eleven. In his The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, originally published in his company's Dearborn Independent in the early 1920s, Henry Ford devoted a chapter to "Jewish Jazz Becomes Our National Music." (The link will take you to the chapter, but at a white supremacist site.) The archvillain most responsible for "debasing" American music, according to Ford, was Irving Berlin. Ford described his efforts to alert his countrymen to the Jewish menace in his 1922 autobiography, My Life and Work:

The work which we describe as Studies in the Jewish Question, and which is variously described by antagonists as "the Jewish campaign," "the attack on the Jews," "the anti-Semitic pogrom," and so forth, needs no explanation to those who have followed it. Its motives and purposes must be judged by the work itself. It is offered as a contribution to a question which deeply affects the country, a question which is racial at its source, and which concerns influences and ideals rather than persons. Our statements must be judged by candid readers who are intelligent enough to lay our words alongside life as they are able to observe it. If our word and their observation agree, the case is made. It is perfectly silly to begin to damn us before it has been shown that our statements are baseless or reckless. The first item to be considered is the truth of what we have set forth. And that is precisely the item which our critics choose to evade. Readers of our articles will see at once that we are not actuated by any kind of prejudice, except it may be a prejudice in favour of the principles which have made our civilization.

There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which were causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time substantial soundness; a general letting-down of standards was felt everywhere. It was not the robust coarseness of the white man, the rude indelicacy, say, of Shakespeare's characters, but a nasty Orientalism which has insidiously affected every channel of expression -- and to such an extent that it was time to challenge it. The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source is a fact to be reckoned with . . . Our work does not pretend to say that last word on the Jew in America. It says only the word which describes his present impress on that country. When that impress is changed, the report of it can be changed . . . Our opposition is only to ideas, false ideas . . . which are sapping the moral stamina of the people. These ideas proceed from easily identified sources, they are promulgated by easily discoverable methods and they are controlled by mere exposure.

It is no accident that in "The Jazz Singer" Jakie serenades his mother with "Blue Skies," an Irving Berlin tune. Or that his father objects to it as "American" music. Irving Berlin started out writing Yiddish parodies of popular songs. Before long he was writing in English and making no references to his ethnic background. Soon enough he was writing songs about Christmas ("White Christmas," still the most recorded song in history), Easter ("Easter Parade"), and patriotism ("God Bless America") in addition to love songs and comical ditties. Fellow composer Jerome Kern, when asked about Berlin's place in American music, remarked that Irving Berlin is American music. Henry Ford got it right but for horribly wrong reasons.

Follow-up: For Feb. 19 read McClymer, "Passing From Light Into Dark." McClymer seeks to complicate the discussion about the use of blackface and other appropriations of racial and ethnic identities. The use of blackface in "The Jazz Singer" has led historians and other scholars to focus on Jews and blackface. This, McClymer seeks to show, ignores the larger cultural patterns involving identity appropriations.

Submit one hour before class responses to the following:

  • What sorts of connections does McClymer claim to find between local entertainments, such as the Norton Company's annual minstrel show, and "The Jazz Singer"?
  • McClymer uses the film career of Werner Oland to illustrate the ways in which Jewish and Asian identities were also appropriated. Why, according to him, were Chinese actors not permitted to play Fu Manchu or his daughter?

Feb. 19: Oral report eleven; discussion of "Passing From Light Into Dark"; scenes from "The Jazz Singer" and from "Birth of a Nation"; introduction to McClymer, "The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s." McClymer's essay focuses upon what we can call the "culture wars" of the post-World War I era. The Klan was emphatically not a fringe movement. Millions of men and women joined. Why? McClymer's answer, in brief, is that they and numerous others felt both entitled and endangered. They felt entitled as the descendants of America's WASP founders. They felt endangered as non-WASPS, blacks but especially Catholics and Jews, gained more and more influence in the society.

Follow-up: For Feb. 24 read the essay through "The War Years as a Turning Point." Submit one hour before class responses to the following:
  • What grievances did Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans cite as reasons for the KKK's growth? Note that he identified some of the most important of these as feelings not easily articulated. If he is vague on a particular point, be vague with him.
  • How persuasive do you find McClymer's argument that the Klan was an American fascism?

Continued »