Pitch a Show! (Fall '08 Ideas)
Got an idea you think would make for a good BackStory topic? We’d love to hear it. If you haven’t read our guidelines for pitching, you can find them here. If you have, bring it on!
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two ideas -
(1) The power of large corporations. The current bailout plan and the concurrent buy-outs of failing financial institutions has left some people worried about the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few very large corporations. Has the relative % of total possible civic and financial power controlled by private businesses grown with the passage of time so that we really are seeing a new (and frightening) phenomenon, or is this just another one of those scares that comes around periodically? Are corporations more controlled by the government than they used to be or less? When did corporations begin to have more rights than people, and how did this happen?
(2) The gap between rich and poor, and how poor are the poor in America. How does the current distribution of wealth in the US population compare with the distribution of wealth at other times in our history? What creates the changes towards a more, or less, equal distribution of wealth? Are Americans who are at or below the poverty line now worse or better off than their forebears?
I think you all are doing a lovely job – I download your shows as podcasts and they have taken the curse off long trips!
Quote1) A more direct look at racial purity focusing on presidential politics, see the Five Negro Presidents by JA Rogers (a 20 page pamphlet), plus Reagan (1/16th African-American), the 2000 rumors that John McCain had a black child, how it mattered and the consequences.
2) Drug use and perspectives on crime throughout history, meth now, crack in the 80′s, opium dens, laudanum in the 1800s, especially the ethnic dimension.
3) The Great Awakenings, religious revivals in US and connection to war.
This is a great show that should be on WAMU in DC Saturday afternoons.
QuoteNational Service.
With the incoming administration, there is already talk of a renewed commitment to national service. Certainly, the most famous moment of national service was JFK’s call to ask what you can do for your country. But service has been a part of America since the beginning.
Tocqueville noted the unique American proclivity towards bettering our communities through civic organizations. Eventually, military service became the standard means to give back to the country. Several Presidents have initiated efforts to increase service (Peace Corps, Thousand Points of Light, VISTA, AmeriCorps) Now, in 2007, 8.1 billion hour were volunteered by Americans. It seems we are more community-focused than ever before. Is that the case?
What has the trend of national service been? Are we worse in our civic participation or better?
QuoteWhat were the conditions under which mandatory service was acceptable to the public (conscription)?
I came across a letter from a 19th-century missionary to Burma, William Moore, dated 1852 October 17, in which he marvels at the speed of communication with the “electric telegraph”. He wrote: ” When distance prevents sight and speech, the best thing we can do is to hold intercourse by means of pen, ink and paper. We live in an age of the world when these are abundant and cheap. And we also enjoy great facilities for carriage. We can hear from each other from the opposite corners of the world in less than three months. And the day is not far distant when less than three weeks will lie between us. An Electric Telegraph is now under contemplation from the Meditteranean [sic] to Calcutta, thence on to Rangoon and Maulmain. All to be done in three years! We live in an age of wonders!”
How has the speed of communication affected the outcome of history? By 11pm EST on November 4th we and the rest of the world knew the outcome of the US presidential election. How quickly did the country know the outcome of the 1860 election? How quickly did the Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence reach not only the inhabitants of the 13 colonies, but England as well? Does speed matter?
QuoteHere’s a topic I’d love to hear about: corruption in the U.S. government. Some folks seem disillusioned with our government these days because of all the nasty stories we’ve heard, from Clinton’s affairs to W’s circumventing the constitution. But then I read _The Dark Side of Camelot_ and heard interviews with Rick Perlstein about his book, _Nixonland_, and I started to wonder if our federal government has always had a great deal of dirty laundry. Maybe we’re better informed now, and maybe government has actually become more honest and accountable. What do you think?
QuoteMysterious or Controversial Deaths in American History
ideas:
QuoteGov. Meriwether Lewis, Oct 1809 (200th anniversary coming up next year)
Sacagawea (1812 or 1889)
Capt. William Morgan (anti-Masonic death in 1820s)
Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid
etc.
Piggy-backing on the mysterious deaths idea… Charlottesville’s got its very own mysterious murder – Fannie McCue, wife of Sam McCue, three-term mayor of Charlottesville, was murdered in 1904. Sam was hung for the murder (the last legal public hanging in VA!), but a lot of controversy surrounds the death.
QuoteA bit meta but I think you’ll agree its just about the most relevant topic possible:
The role, if any, played by historians in influencing policy decisions and/or public opinion.
I don’t think I really need to try to back this further.
QuoteThis is a great question. of course, we can point to individual historians who have influenced specific presidential administrations — Arthur Schlesinger Jr. springs to mind, or historical works that have influenced the way that presidential administrations are regarded — our Eighteenth-Century guy Peter Onuf certainly has influenced the way we think of TJ. But overall, it is the way history is written that ultimately has the greatest influence on public policy. Heroic accounts of great men in the White House influenced the way texts were written, and ultimately enocuraged Americans to trust their goverment for much of the first half of the twentieth century. The rise of more critical New Left accounts, and the related emergence of social and cultural history contributed to (and was the product of) a growing challenge to authority in the White House and across the professions.
Quotetwentieth-century guy
Some of these ideas are terrific. I particularly like Logan’s suggestion about civil society (a broader idea than “national service,” which–military service aside–doesn’t have much of a history, even, alas, in recent times). Maybe this could take us into a discussion of citizenship obligations and how they have developed (or degenerated?) over our three centuries. We might then be able to figure out why Americans are so ambivalent about national, state-sponsored service as opposed to private action for the public good.
QuoteA related thought to doing a show on historians — the stories we tell TO ourselves ABOUT ourselves have an ongoing effect on our future attitudes and behavior. For instance, if you ask someone to tell a story from childhood and it’s about how their father used to spank them if their beds weren’t made by 8:00 AM and their shoes shined every day, then you’ve almost certainly met someone who values discipline, order, and neatness. It’s only partly that they learned this from those spankings. It’s also that when you asked for a story — ANY story — that story sprang to mind first because it is a window into character.
So the stories historians tell are our national stories to ourselves about ourselves, and they are windows into our national character. What about the stories we _don’t_ tell? For example, the idea of free love hardly started with the hippies — Victoria Woodhull ran for president on a TICKET of free love. Atheists and other religious free thinkers were common at the very founding of the republic. The idea of abolition was not new in 1860 — the French had been appalled by slavery and told Washington and Jefferson how abhorrent and immoral it was a hundred years before.
Most of interest to me, books on the Civil War could fill a library, yet there are only a couple of really good historians focusing on Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a critical period of our history that would reverberate perhaps even MORE through history than the four years that preceded it, yet we as a people don’t like the story it tells us about ourselves, a nation that turned a blind eye to cruelty.
So let’s hear the wonderful “dead ends” of history — the un-talked-of history and dissenting opinions we only think are modern.
[I was a history major under the amazing Justus Doenecke at New College of Florida -- my thesis examined American propaganda in World War II]
[Borrowing a habit from mentalfloss.com of noting when the captcha words appear ironic or apropos: my captcha for this comment is "biggest kingdom".]
QuoteA story about the meaning of “natural born citizen” would certainly be timely. This issue first arose in connection with Senator McCain (when the media gave a great deal of attention to the fact he was born in Panama). Later, this same question came up in connection to Senator Obama (due to questions surrounding his birth documentation, his father’s citizenship, etc). Nor has the subject disappeared: this month the Supreme Court has three conferences scheduled to discuss two of the legal actions on this matter (on Jan 9, 16 and 23). That could be a very lively discussion topic!
QuoteWhen ‘elected officials’ aren’t elected
Look at the history and politics of nominating senators and other officials to fill vacant seats. success stories and failures?
From the active non-campaigning campaigning in NY for HIllary Clinton’s seat to the Illinois shenanigans. When have there been back-room deals; how often have individuals with no political experience been nominated?
Other examples of unelected politicians holding office due to deaths or other vacancies.
QuoteThanks, Polly for your timely suggestion. We’ll definitely throw it into the hopper here!
Incidentally, I noticed today that Senator Russ Feingold is planning to introduce a constitutional amendment that would do away with the gubernatorial appointment process that has caused so much strife this year. You can read about his rationale here: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/01/feingold-introduces-28th-amendment.html
-Tony (BackStory Producer)
QuoteAnother angle for this topic might be the history of volunteerism in America. For people with spare time, there’s no shortage of organizations crying out for volunteers. When did that phenomenon begin? Did it have to do with growing industrialization and urbanization in the 19th and early 20th centuries? or with the abolitionist movement, or the Civil War? What role did churches play in getting people to think in terms of volunteer service? I would guess that upper-class women have been at the center of many volunteer movements, simply because they had more leisure time than most people–but how have the demographics of volunteers changed over the years? To what extent do volunteer movements reflect our changing national priorities?
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