Past Present

On this week's Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Bernie Sanders and the history of socialism in America, Fitbit, and why adults are now celebrating Halloween.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic Party's nomination has raised the old question, "Why is there no socialism in America?" That question served as the title of Werner Sombart's 1906 classic. Natalia mentioned the historian Eric Foner's advice that Sanders should use moral language to defend socialism as Eugene Debs did in the early 20th century. Natalia also noted that Larry David's portrayal of Sanders on Saturday Night Live could make the senator's Jewishness more well-known among American voters.
• Some Wall Street banks have ordered Fitbit activity trackers for their employees, a decision they explained for improving workers' health. But many see dangerous possibilities when companies track their employees' personal lives. Niki recommended Sarah Igo's book, The Averaged American, for thinking more about the history of data in Americans' lives. Natalia noted the recent book The Wellness Syndrome discusses how Americans' obsession with health and fitness may be becoming an unhealthy obsession. Natalia, our fitness history expert, has written about wellness culture in America for the Huffington Post.
• Once a holiday for children, Halloween has become a popular event for many American adults in part because of the dangers associated with it for children. Steven Mintz's Huck's Raft and Paula Fass' Kidnapped were recommended as two books that historicize American fears about child welfare and safety.

In our regular closing feature, What's Making History:

• Natalia recommended Michelle Miller's The Underwriting as a page-turning thriller about a Silicon Valley dating website's IPO. Natalia noted the novel had originally been published online in downloadable installments, harkening back the older publishing traditional of serializing literature.
• Neil commented on the discovery that Mike Huckabee's 1998 book Kids Who Kill was found to have contained numerous false and misattributed historical quotations from figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. Neil presented this as another cautionary tale in how politicians use and misuse history for their political advantage.
• Niki discussed the Slate article, "French Tadpoles and Persian Pickles," an excerpt from Jude Stewart's book, Patternalia. The article presented a fascinating history of paisley, but Niki noted it also demonstrated how the history of a pattern was also a way of understanding the history of society and culture.

On this week's Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Playboy magazine's decision to stop publishing nude photos, the strength and stability of the nation's political parties, and the whitening of American cities.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• Many commentators attributed Playboy's decision to stop publishing nude photos as the inevitable result for a print magazine caught in a culture awash in Internet pornography. Neil pointed out that in addition to its famous centerfolds, the magazine has a long history of publishing serious articles, including interviews with leading cultural and political figures like, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jimmy Carter.
• There's been lots of talk about the brokenness of the Republican Party, but others are beginning to suggest the Democrats aren't in great shape either. Niki contended that political polarization and party hostility have contributed to the instability of the parties.
• The Washington Post recently reported that the white population is growing in 45 of the nation's 50 biggest cities. Neil argued it wasn't right to see this development as the "reversal of white flight." (For an excellent history of "white flight," see Kevin Kruse's 2005 study of Atlanta.) Natalia suggested that Thomas Frank's book, The Conquest of Cool, provided a useful way to think about why cities have become so attractive to white professionals again.

In our regular closing feature, What's Making History:

• Natalia discussed the New York Times article, "The Lonely Death of George Bell." Natalia contrasted the detached manner with which readers have seemed to respond to this story of an old man's isolated death as compared to the outrage Americans felt about reports in 1964 that Kitty Genovese had been stabbed to death over several hours while her neighbors did nothing. (See the New York Times' original article about Genovese's murder here.)
• Neil commented on the controversy regarding Mark Juergensmeyer's decision to boycott a conference at Brigham Young University in protest of the school's policy of expelling LDS students who lose their Mormon faith or convert to another religion. Juergensmeyer had been alerted to this policy by the student group Free BYU which is pressuring the university to reverse its policy.
• Niki recommended Pamela Newkirk's book, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, which tells the story of the Congolese man put on display in a monkey cage at the New York Zoological Gardens in 1906.

On this week's Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Confederate history and memorialization, selfie shaming, and Carly Fiorina and conservative feminism.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• Students at Yale have petitioned the university to rename the residential college named for John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina politician and ardent defender of slavery. (You can read the formal petition: here.) Neil noted the recent book, Ebony and Ivy, by MIT historian Craig Steven Wilder explores the connection between northern universities and the institution of slavery.
• A group of sorority sisters being mocked for taking selfies at a recent Arizona Diamondbacks game quickly became a viral media sensation. Natalia referenced Christopher Lasch's 1979 classic, The Culture of Narcissism, as one way to understand the "selfie" phenomenon, but suggested we might also recognize selfies as an act of female self-empowerment and self-expression in a culture with such demanding expectations regarding women's appearance.
• With her recent essay calling for "redefining feminism," Carly Fiorina has joined the small ranks of conservative women who call themselves feminists. Other examples included the women of Feminists for Life, a pro-life organization founded in 1972 that believed it was a feminist duty to protect women from the atrocity of abortion.

In our regular closing feature, What's Making History:

• Natalia shared an article about the history of leftover food as an example of how historical analysis can use the objects of everyday life to understand the bigger picture of American economic history.
• Neil recommended Gilbert King's 2012 book, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, which chronicles Marshall's legal defense of four young African-American citrus workers in central Florida falsely accused of rape in 1949.
• Niki discussed the reappearance of Richard Nixon in the form of the Twitter account @dick_nixon and how Nixon's funeral became a culture touchstone. Read Hunter S. Thompson's obituary of Nixon here.

On this week's Past Present bonus episode, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss the history of gun policy and debates over the Second Amendment.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• The mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon that left ten people dead has once again put the contentious issue of gun rights in the national conversation.
• Both gun rights and gun control advocates have used bad history about the Second Amendment and gun ownership to advance their particular causes. Natalia noted the book, Arming America, by Michael Bellesiles at first was embraced by liberal proponents of gun control until the work was thoroughly discredited for using falsified research. Conservatives argue the Constitution secured an individual right to gun ownership, but historians like Jill Lepore have shown the National Rifle Association has played the critical role in advancing this interpretation since the 1970s.
• This week, Niki wrote about American life in the "Age of the Gun" for U.S. News & World Report.

On this week's Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Pope Francis' visit to the US, the "quit lit" phenomenon, and Donald Trump.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• The papal visit of Pope Francis marks the tenth time a pope has come to the United States. In his new book, We Gather Together, Neil writes about how Pope John Paul II's papal visits in the 1980s strengthened the American pro-life movement and deepened evangelical-Catholic relations.
• The rise of "quit lit" from professors announcing their departure from academia in written form found its most recent example in an essay for the website Vox. But the fantasy of quitting one's job has been a frequent theme in American pop culture, from Johnny Paycheck's country hit, "Take This Job and Shove It," to the twentieth-century novels Babbitt and Revolutionary Road.
• Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to intrigue and puzzle political commentators. Historians have looked for historical precedents for Trump, but it may be that Trump, particularly in terms of his views on immigration and his outrageous comments about Mexicans, is best understood in the historical currents of American populism and nativism. Niki has written frequently on the Trump phenomenon in her column for U.S. News.

In our regular closing feature, What's Making History:

• Natalia discussed the recent finding that more people in 2015 have died from "selfie-related deaths" than from shark attacks. Such news reminded Natalia of Christopher Lasch's critique of American society in his 1979 classic, The Culture of Narcissism.
• Neil recommended Johnny Depp's new movie, Black Mass, which depicts the career of James "Whitey" Bulger, the mafia kingpin and FBI informant who terrorized South Boston in the 1970s and early 1980s.
• ·Niki spoke about Erik Kirschbaum's recent editorial, "Whatever Happened to German America?" Niki, our resident German American, waxed nostalgic about her love for kuchen, springerle, and the Schnitzelbank drinking song. While understanding the history of discrimination against German Americans, which David Kennedy outlined in his book Over Here, Niki suggested there are much stronger historical reasons why we won't see an organized drive to reclaim German-American identity any time soon.

Episode 2, September 21, 2015 Show Notes

On this week's Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss the Planned Parenthood video controversy, the IPO of SoulCycle, and the rise of corporate support for gay rights.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• The release of undercover videos showing a Planned Parenthood official discussing the organization's practice of donating fetal tissue have elicited outrage from conservative outlets. The videos stand in a long tradition of anti-abortion activism, but also demonstrate the increasing power of undercover videos as a form of political activism.
• SoulCycle's initial public offering has attracted the attention of Wall Street investors, but the cycling brand has received steady criticism from cultural critics since its wheels first started spinning. For those interested in reading more about the history of fitness and wellness, be sure to check out Natalia's essays on these topics.
• The Dorito's Rainbow chips are raising money for the It Gets Better Project. Other recent gay-friendly marketing campaigns have included Chipotle's "Homo Estas" ads and Ben & Jerry's "I Dough, I Dough" ice cream. Aside from these marketing efforts, corporations have played a leading role in fighting for gay rights since the 1990s.

In our regular closing feature, What's Making History:

• Natalia responded to a recent New York Times editorial that parents rather than schools should have the ultimate say in their children's lunches. While acknowledging the class and cultural dimensions of food, Natalia argued that food and nutrition experts needed to have the same educational authority in the classroom that math and history instructors also hold. Natalia has written about how school wellness programs may be the next frontier in the nation's culture wars.
• Neil discussed Stacy Schiff's New Yorker article, "The Witches of Salem." (Schiff's new book on the Salem Witch Trials comes out in late October.) Neil noted the rich historical literature on the Salem Witch Trials has included Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's Salem Possessed and Mary Beth Norton's In the Devil's Snare.
• Niki spoke about Ari Berman's new book Give Us the Ballot which argues we are in the midst of a counterrevolution in voting rights. If you want to read more about the battle over the ballot while you are waiting for Ari's book to arrive, Niki has written about the history of voting rights several times in her column at U.S. News. See here, here, and here.

On this week's Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss the jailing of Kim Davis and the history of civil disobedience, the new online marketplace called TeachersPayTeachers, and the controversy over Taylor Swift's new video for "Wildest Dreams."

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week's show:

• The jailing of Kim Davis had her conservative defenders arguing this was an act of civil disobedience while her critics responded Davis' defiance would ultimately benefit the gay rights movement.
• The website TeachersPayTeachers received glowing coverage from the New York Times.
• Taylor Swift's new music video for "Wildest Dreams" inspired a swift critique from two African writers. Swift's production team rushed to the video's defense, making their own case for historical accuracy. But plenty others have criticized "Wildest Dreams" as promoting a colonial nostalgia.

In our regular closing feature, What's Making History:

• Neil cited Bernie Sanders' speech at Liberty University and compared it to Mitt Romney's controversial appearance at Liberty in 2012.
• Natalia discussed Germany's response to the European refugee crisis in light of the country's complicated national history.
• Niki compared the stability of the American political system to that of Australia's that, with the recent election of Malcolm Turnbull to prime minister in a leadership spill, has had five prime ministers in four years.