Historically Thinking

Today my guest is Timothy J. Lombardo, a native Philadelphian who when it came time to craft a doctoral dissertation decided to write what he knew about. And Tim knows Philadelphia, as his book Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia and the Rise of Populist Politics makes abundantly clear. It's not a biography of Frank Rizzo–cop, Police Commissioner, two-term Mayor of Philadelphia–but an exploration of those people to whom Rizzo appealed.

Lombardo can write about what those people thought, and what they saw in Frank Rizzo, because of the sources the used. We don't talk about it during our conversation, unfortunately, but Rizzo got a lot–a lot–of letters, and these have all been preserved in the collection of his papers. They offer an opportunity to see how blue-collar Philadelphians thought and felt about what was going on in their city. It's not an exaggeration to say that without such sources, Lombardo couldn't have written about his book.

In the end, of course, the book is about much more than Philadelphia. Lombardo makes a very persuasive argument that what in Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia, particularly the lower-class rage against elite opinion that was a feature of that era in the city, is now a pervasive part of American political culture.

For Further Investigation

* The time Frank Rizzo appeared on a true-crime show hosted by Lee Marvin

* Controversies over Frank Rizzo's statue 

* Controversy over Frank Rizzo's mural

* "I'll break that camera over your head"

In 1619, the first Africans arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, the first African-Americans to enter what would become the

United States. They came on a Dutch ship, the White Lion, that had earlier on its voyage captured a Portuguese slave ship on its way to Mexico. It's not clear what happened to these Africans; they were probably treated as indentured servants, laboring for a certain number of years before receiving freedom and a bounty (of land, tools, and clothes). But by 1640 there is one man recorded as being a slave for life; by 1662 are the first Virginia laws recognizing lifetime slavery; and 1705, Virginia codified (that is, organized and made final) its laws of slavery. That system of slavery would last from 1705 to 1865. It rapidly became a slave society, a society dependent upon the existence of slavery.

What is striking is that no sooner had slave societies begun to exist in British America than a movement was intimated to end it. This movement became known as abolitionism. Probably a surprisingly small percentage of people in 1860 would have referred to themselves as "abolitionists". Nevertheless, abolitionism was one the most successful and consequential movements for social change in world history. That's a big claim, but it's not without warrant.

That warrant is what Richard S. Newman and I discuss in today's conversation. He's the author of Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2018), about which we end up having a very long conversation which doesn't really make it to the 1850's. But we enjoyed it, and hope you do to.

In 1619, the first Africans arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, the first African-Americans to enter what would become the United States. They came on a Dutch ship, the White Lion, that had earlier on its voyage captured a Portuguese slave ship on its way to Mexico. It’s not clear what happened to these Africans; they were […]

Foucault explained, by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

Richard Aldous, Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Foucault explained, by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  Richard Aldous, Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Sometimes the way we imagine someone or something can become more important than what they are. It's a familiar problem in relationships. We can call this an "imagining" of a person, to contrast it with who the person actually is. And we can do this with places, communities, and things as well: the home where we grew up, our high school, our family, our first car. Those imaginings don't have to be warm and nostalgic, either; they are probably just as often regretful, bitter, angry, or vengeful. And of course different people have different imaginings of the same thing.

My guest Zachary Lechner argues that Americans had different sorts of imaginings of the South in the 1960's and 70's, specifically of the "White South" in the era of the Civil Rights movement and of the economic boom of what might be called the New New South. Together our conversation roams from imaginings, to the movie Mississippi Burning; from Canadians living in the Hudson Valley writing a classic "Lost Cause" ballad, to what Burt Reynolds, George Wallace, and Jimmy Carter exemplify of Southern manhood; and whether "the South" actually exists.

For Further Investigation

* Zachary J. Lechner, South of the Mind: American Imaginings of White Southernness, 1960-1980

* The Mississippi Burning Trial

* George Wallace Obituary

* The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

* An Oral History of Deliverance

Sometimes the way we imagine someone or something can become more important than what they are. It’s a familiar problem in relationships. We can call this an “imagining” of a person, to contrast it with who the person actually is. And we can do this with places, communities, and things as well: the home where […]

* Hoover Dam

* Apollo 7, from Encyclopedia Astronautica

* The Battle of Lepanto, discussed on In Our Time

* Dante mistakenly believes he has found Boniface VIII in Hell, while he is still alive

 

Hoover Dam Apollo 7, from Encyclopedia Astronautica The Battle of Lepanto, discussed on In Our Time Dante mistakenly believes he has found Boniface VIII in Hell, while he is still alive

I've been doing something revolutionary of late: recording meetings in person. Occasionally I did this in the WAUG studio

at Augustana College, with a colleague who walked over to join me. But I've never actually taken my laptop and Blue Yeti microphone to someone's office or place of business, sat down with them, and had a conversation. I'm curious to see if you notice the difference, not just in quality of sound, but in quality of interaction. I strive in this podcast not to interview the other person, but to have a conversation about the history that they've done. An conversation, I think, can capture a little of how historical thinking is done by historians. Ideally you should feel that you are the third person in the room, listening to two of us talk things through.

Today I talk through things with one of my favorite people with whom to do so, Brent Tarter. As you will hear, Brent has been with the Library of Virginia, the commonwealth's equivalent to the Library of Congress, for a long time. In the course of his labors he has mastered a knowledge of Virginia's history, all of it, that is really unparalleled. We talk over a few things: why elites remained powerful for so long in Virginia; why the success of slavery after 1830 gives the lie to the widely believed notion that Virginia and the upper South were in economic and social decline from 1830 to 1860; and the difficulties of doing genealogy.

[Apologies for the sound, and the late drop of the conversation: I hit the wrong button and Brent's office was much noisier than I thought it would be, requiring Jon Ruddat to do some extra audio magic.]

* The Library of Virginia

* Brent Tarter, "The New Virginia Bookshelf" (VMHB 104.1, Winter 1996)

* Dictionary of Virginia Biography

* Books by Brent Tarter