Above: John Rocque's, 'A General Map of North America' [Maps K.Top.118.32]

The summer marches on and while we are all tempted to kick-back and enjoy this unusual spell of consistent sunshine the writers in our audience may, nonetheless, want to have an eye on their plans for next year. The Eccles Centre’s call for applicants to the 2019 Writer’s Award is currently open and you have until the end of August to apply. For those of you who don’t know, the Award amounts to £20,000 for a twelve month residency at the British Library. Applicants should be working on a non-fiction or fiction full-length book, written in the English Language, the research for which requires that they make substantial use of the British Library’s collections relating to any part of the Americas (North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean). We are very excited to be broadening the horizons of the Award for this year and hope authors using the wider Americas collections will apply.

 

Above: Andrea Wulf (bhoto by Ander McIntyre) and an illustration of a monkey created by Humboldt for the account of his voyage (149.h.5.(1), from BL Images Online)

Previous awardees include Benjamin Markovits, Will Atkins, Andrea Wulf and many others. Each of our Award holders has used the Americas collections of the British Library to add extra depth to their research. For example, Will Atkins used the collections to research the history of exploration of deserts in the US as well as the history of events like the Burning Man festival. Meanwhile, Andrea Wulf drew from the Library’s collections, especially our printed book and maps collections, to conduct her research into the life and travels of Alexander von Humbolt. The Americas collections are broad in scope and potentially useful items can be found in the form of printed books, manuscripts, newspapers, government documents, photographs, maps, pamphlets and many more materials types. As a result, a wide world of inspiration awaits our 2019 Award holder.

If this has inspired you to leave the sun lounger and consider putting in an application, we would love to hear from you. For more information about applying for the Award, as well as insights into the work of previous winners, please visit our website. If you have any questions or would like to talk to someone about the award you can also get in touch with us at: [email protected].

Phil Hatfield, Head of the Eccles Centre

‘The S.S. Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 22 June 1948 with 492 Jamaican men on-board’ is a sentence that has been written and said, in some form, countless times. It exemplifies how the repetition of words can enshrine believed truths. Not only is this statement factually incorrect, it reduces a complex and historical phenomenon into a neat moment. Windrush was not neat, it was not just Jamaican, not just male, and crucially not just the boat that docked at Tilbury on 22 June 1948.

The post will flag up some of the forgotten voyages that brought men, women and children from all over the Caribbean to Britain. Some of these journeys are referred to in ‘The Arrivals’ section of the Windrush: Songs in a Strange Land  exhibition and can also be found in the library’s vast newspaper collection.

‘Jamaican's Seeking Work in England’, The Times, 2 April 1947, p.2

 

In April 1947, the S.S. Ormonde arrived in Liverpool. This article gave a sympathetic-paternalistic response to the 11 stowaways who came to Britain in search of work. In the context of severe financial problems in Jamaica, Sigismund Alexander McCarthy, an ex-service man from Kingston, described the need to come to the ‘Mother Country’. In the court hearing, the Chairman declared, “We have a good deal of sympathy with men like you who want work.” In many ways this set the tone for a partial acceptance of Caribbean people as temporary workers rather than citizens.

‘31 Coloured Men Stowaway to Find Work’, Southern Daily Echo, 22 December 1947

Later that year, the Almanzora docked at Southampton on 21 December 1947. It brought 200 West Indian passengers, including 31 stowaways – many of whom were ex-RAF. Unlike Empire Windrush, this arrival caused a local rather than national stir. There was no national press sent to ‘welcome’ the arrivals.

Immigrants from West Indies, The Times 24 June 1949 p.4

The British Nationality Act was passed in 1948 which explains why the majority of voyages arrived after Empire Windrush. The act conferred the status of British citizen on all Commonwealth subjects, recognising their right to work and settle in the UK. The Georgic, which arrived in Liverpool on 25 June 1949, had the 'biggest number of coloured colonial immigrants to arrive on one ship since the Empire Windrush'. The party of 254 included 61 women, 26 men who had already been to England, ‘mostly in the R.A.F' and 30 Trinidadians. Hence, this article depicted a diverse group of passengers, challenging the perception of voyagers as being single Jamaican men on their first journey to England.

In 1954, the Reina del Pacifico docked at Liverpool, bringing ‘More than three hundred Jamaican immigrants, men seeking work, or women coming to join husbands already established here’.[1] As waves of Caribbean migration continued, the number of women and children arriving overtook that of their male counterparts. A full-page spread in The Times, ‘West Indians Send for Their Families,’ illustrated this gender and age shift. By 1958, women and children ‘accounted for well over half of the 16,511 arrivals.’[2] The article mentions the 2,500 Barbadians (mostly women) who joined the British Hotels and Restaurants Association as part of the 1955 Barbadian Government sponsored training scheme, alongside describing the other important jobs that Caribbean people were doing – nursing, teaching and working on London’s transport system. By reporting work, housing and family life, the article presented an increasingly settled community, rather than a tale of migrants who were here to work temporarily.

In the months preceding the implementation of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 – a racialised law that would greatly restrict the rights of certain Commonwealth citizens – there was a migration surge. In the British Pathé newsreel from 1962, 'Immigrants Beat Clock' 

, lots of smartly dressed children are shown disembarking at Southampton, just hours before the act came into force. The narrator tells of how ‘in the last week, in addition to those coming by sea, 2000 flew in’. Perhaps some of these children are those that have faced profound citizenship-insecurity in recent years, as part of the Home Office’s ‘hostile environment’ policy.

The so-called Windrush Generation was made of up a myriad of forgotten voyages which came via multiple routes – sea, air, mostly paid for and sometimes stowaways – and for different reasons – work, love and journeys of return.

- Naomi Oppenheim

@naomioppenheim 

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Student, British Library and UCL. Researching Caribbean popular culture and the politics of history in post-war Britain and assisted on Windrush: Songs in a Strange Land

 

[1] Immigrants Arrive from Jamaica, The Manchester Guardian, 19 October 1954, front page.

[2] West Indians Send for Their Families, The Times, 1 December 1959, p.15

One of the British Library’s primary principles is to support research.  A key way in which we do this is to support research conducted externally, which relates to our collections.  In this vein, the Americas, Contemporary British and Eccles Centre teams are supporting a fascinating project on North American indigenous presence in Britain- “Beyond the Spectacle”.

“Beyond the Spectacle” is a collaborative three-year AHRC funded project investigating the cultural, economic, and political impacts and legacies of five centuries’ of travel by Native North Americans to Britain, whether it resulted in return trips, onward movement into Europe, or even long-term residence in Britain.  

The research team, headed by Prof David Stirrup and Prof Jacqueline Fear-Segal and based at the Universities of Kent and East Anglia, will draw upon a diverse range of source material. Much of this has never previously examined -- archival holdings, museum collections, and oral histories—and the British Library’s holdings will be a vital resource.

In the Library, you can see the documents such as deeds of conveyance of lands, and covenants and agreements in our manuscripts collections.  For example, the following document with the mark of three sachem of the Iroquois confederacy, who visited London in 1710 to meet with Queen Anne.

 

Lansdowne MS 1052

You may also be interested to read about the diplomatic visit by three Cherokee representatives in 1765 following the Anglo Cherokee war, as related by Lieut. Henry Timberlake’s in his memoirs.  Timberlake acted as emissary from the British Colonies to the Overhill Cherokee, and accompanied the representatives on their visit. 

Shelfmark 1418.h.2

The British Library also holds a pamphlet published in 1848 by the first Native American to organise and lead his own dance troupe around Britain, Maungwudaus (George Henry). 

Shelfmark 10413.h.1.

Writer, entertainer, entrepreneur, preacher and herbalist, this gifted Mississaugian man mixed in European high society while representing his own people. He is a key figure in the explorations of ‘Beyond the Spectacle.  His descriptions of his experiences are wonderfully vivid, providing a valuable insight into how he perceived British society, its customs, and how he and his troupe were received as the below passage attests.

“Beyond the Spectacle” aims to uncover such materials elsewhere in the UK, and enrich our understanding of these complex and fascinating encounters.  To find out more visit the project website, where you can stay updated with the latest uncovered traces of Native American visitors to Britain via the blog and map:

https://research.kent.ac.uk/beyondthespectacle

 

- Jacqueline Fear Segal & F.D. Fuentes Rettig

The central role of Migration in the development of the United States ensures it is a theme well represented upon the nation’s postage stamps. The first to tackle the subject was the United States 1869 Issue 15 cent stamp containing James Smillie’s vignette engraving depicting the landing of Columbus in the Americas on 12^th October 1492. Based upon John Vanderlyn’s famous painting now displayed inside the Capitol’s Rotunda in Washington, this event is widely recognised to be a turning point in the history of migration to the Americas. Furthermore this stamp and succeeding issues all provide clear allusions to the economic, military and religious incentives behind the waves of migration to the American Continent since the closing years of the fifteenth century to the present day.

The main objective of Columbus’ voyages was to establish maritime trading routes to the East Indies; instead he discovered the New World. The wealth accrued by consequent Spanish colonial, military and economic in the Americas in turn encouraged mercantile classes from rival European nation states to try and emulate such economic success. The French, English, Swedish, Dutch and others all established colonial settlements within North America from the sixteenth century onwards. The United States 13 July 1984 20 cent stamp commemorating the 400^th Anniversary of the First Raleigh Expedition to Roanoke Island depicts the Elizabeth Galleon, one of the vessels involved in establishing the famous Roanoke Colony which vanished under mysterious circumstances.

More successful was the establishment of England’s first successful permanent Colony established at Jamestown, Virginia by the Virginia Company in 1607, an event commemorated on the United States 1907 Jamestown Exposition Issue 2 cent stamp.

 

 The United States 27 June 1938 Issue 3 cent stamp commemorating the tercentenary of Scandinavian Settlement in America depicts the establishment of a colonial settlement by Swedes and Finns on the lower reaches of the Delaware River in present day Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1638.

Religious and political persecution in Europe during the early seventeenth century also led to migrants settling in various parts of America. The United States 18 December 1920 Issue 2 cents stamp commemorates the tercentenary of the migration of a group of religious dissenters known as the Pilgrim Fathers who established Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1620.

 

In 1624 Huguenot-Walloon migrants also migrated to the United States to escape religious persecution forming the first permanent Dutch Settlement known as Fort Orange or New Netherland in present day Albany an event celebrated on the United States 1 May 1924 Issue 2 cent stamp.

Missionary activity also resulted in migrants settling within America, individuals like a major the French Jesuit Missionary Father Jacques Marquette (1637-1675) established settlements at Michigan and was one of the first Europeans to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River. His exploits commemorated on both the United States 10 June 1898 issue 1 cent and 20 September 1968 Issue 6 cent stamps.

 

After the War of Independence, the territorial extent of the fledgling United States was largely confined to the eastern seaboard of America. As an independent nation the government initiated a continued policy of westward expansion into the hinterland of North America. This expansion extended the Nation’s boundaries to the Pacific coastline. One of the earliest of such migrations into the North-West Territories now known as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois conducted by veterans of the War of Independence and the Ohio Company has been commemorated on the United States 15 July 1938 Issue 3 cent stamp.

Further South, Daniel Boone’s famous explorations in Virginia resulting in the establishment of the Kentucky Settlement in 1792 has also been depicted on the United States 1 June 1942 Issue 3 cent stamp to commemorate Kentucky’s 150^th Anniversary.

The United States Government also acquired territory for settlement via diplomacy and financial transactions with foreign colonial powers. A good example is the acquisition of lands acquired from the Spanish and French which formed parts of the Mississippi Territory, a precursor to the State of Mississippi established in 1798. The various stages of this expansion are depicted on the United States 8^th April 1948 Issue 3 cent stamp commemorating the Territory’s 150^th Anniversary.

Pioneers and settlers involved in such migration and settlement faced significant dangers and hardships in the form of starvation, disease and violence. Such conditions are alluded to in the United States 10 June 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition, Omaha Issue, 8 cent stamp depicting troops guarding a pioneer train from attacks whilst the 10 cent  depicts a dead horse on a pioneer wagon.

With such privation in mind, the Government introduced financial incentives for westward migration in the form of various Government Acts offering land parcels at favourable prices or for free. The United States 20 May 1962 Issue 4 cent stamp commemorates the 1852 Homestead Act passed by Abraham Lincoln offering public land in the west to any US citizen, including free slaves, who was willing to settle, farm and improve the land over a period of five years.

The forced migration of African slaves to America is unrepresented on the library’s United States philatelic holdings. Nevertheless one particular issue which demonstrates its importance in shaping America is the United States 20 February 1987 Black Heritage Issue 22 cent stamp depicting an idealised portrait of Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable and some of his property and lands during the late eighteenth century which helped found modern day Chicago.

 

Richard Scott Morel

Curator, Philatelic Collections

 

Images from the British Library, Philatelic Collections:  The Tapling Collection and UPU Collection material for the  United States of America.

 

 

Above: Klondiker's buying mining licenses in Victoria, BC. J. W. Jones, 1898 [Picturing Canada project on Wiki Commons]

Summertime is always exciting for the Eccles Centre as we announce new calls for our various awards and fellowships. Keep an eye on the Americas blog for news of our various award schemes over the coming months but today I wanted to write about our US-UK Fulbright Commission Scholarship. This is a relatively new part of our programme and is a partnership with Fulbright to bring a US-based scholar to the Library so they can work on the North American collections held here. Work can be on any area of the collections relating to Canada, the Caribbean and / or the United States and applications connected to the Centre’s research priorities are encouraged.

The Fulbright-Eccles Scholarship is a unique opportunity for a US-based scholar as it provides a significant award (£12,000) to cover a dedicated research trip of twelve months. As well as using the collections of the Library our Scholars are encouraged to take part in our events programme, including our evening lectures and Summer Scholars season, and present about their work with partner institutions outside of the Library, such as the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford. This provides a rich set of opportunities to develop ideas and discuss them with a variety of audiences during the scholarship. We are also happy to facilitate a Scholar in conducting wider work with the Library and helping them get to know other parts of the Library’s operation, such as our innovative Learning Team, British Library Publishing and others.

Our 2018-19 Scholar will be Professor Andrew Hartman who will be using the British Library’s collections to conduct further research on the influence of Karl Marx on American political thought. The research will form part of Professor Hartman’s upcoming book, Karl Marx in America, which is contracted to University of Chicago Press. The Fulbright-Eccles Scholar is one of over 800 U.S. citizens who will teach and conduct research abroad for the 2018-2019 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program; if you would like to apply to be our Scholar in the 2019-20 academic year please do see our website for further information and get in touch with us.

Phil Hatfield, Head of the Eccles Centre

June 5, 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.  Reflections on his political and cultural significance have appeared across media, with many  articles illustrated by wonderful photographs from the lively campaign for the Democratic nomination he was working on, and winning, at the time of his death.  Perhaps the most striking images, however, are of the crowds that came to pay their respect alongside the train tracks via which RFK's funeral train passed on its way from New York to Washington on June 8, 1968.

The most well circulated images from the funeral train were taken by Magnum photographer Paul Fusco.  Fusco was working for Look magazine, and was assigned to the funeral mass and burial.  The mass was held at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York, where RFK's brother Edward Kennedy delivered this moving eulogy to his older brother.  Subsequently, his body was taken by train to Washington where it was transferred to a cortege that wound past Resurrection City, to its final resting place alongside President John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery.

It was a hot summer Saturday and the crowds that appeared along the length of the train tracks were so large that the train had to run at a slower speed, following a collision at a station.  The journey lasted most of the day, and was broadcast in its entirety on national television (it was also partially transmitted by satellite to the UK).  Perhaps for this reason, the photographs remained largely unseen until 1999 when Fusco found a new audience for his work.  The America they capture is a reflection of RFK's political vision and campaign strategy - profoundly democratic and inclusive, and which spoke directly to and about people at the margins of society.  They are also a fascinating evocation of US urban life in 1968, the social demographic mapping of cities, and the importance of trains and railway infrastructure within this.  It is interesting to consider how the communities depicted in Fusco's photographs have since fared.  Baltimore proves a particularly sobering comparison, from the lively and thriving neighbourhood seen in Fusco's photograph of North Broadway, and its current condition.  Elsewhere, whole communities disappeared under eminent domain with the expansion of Washington Dulles airport.

It is safe to say that this particularly egalitarian view of national mourning was possible because it was a train journey.  In this respect, Kennedy's funeral followed in the footsteps of Presidents F.D. Roosevelt and Lincoln, both of whom were transported by train following their deaths.  FDR died at Warm Springs, Atlanta, and was returned to Washington by train, although though this was not part of his funerary rituals.

Map by Steven Noble, shelfmark YC.2012.a.6505

Abraham Lincoln's funeral train journey was of a wholly different scale.  Departing Washington on April 21st 1865, it passed through hundreds of towns, stopping at 12 cities in 6 states on a 13 day trip.  Pulled by Lincoln's purpose-made engine, The United States, the funeral train followed the reverse route from Springfield, Illinois to Washington made by Lincoln for his 1860 inauguration.  You can read more about this on the Library of Congress' interactive site, which houses photographs, maps and newspaper accounts.  Lincoln's funeral is now near-mythical, and has been an inspiration for many projects - including this particular endeavour to rebuild The United States.

Clearly, trains figure largely in the American political imagination, which is pertinent given their early importance in connecting isolated populations to national events.  The whistle-stop campaign continued to be used in 20th Century campaigns as it continued to be a practical strategy of reaching otherwise alienated voters in sprawling states, while also invoking the nostalgia of 19th century political Americana.  It thus should not be a surprise that trains continued to figure largely in political death - they too proved an eminently practical means of enabling community-based mourning, and in the case of President Lincoln and Senator Kennedy, they also transported a large entourage of mourners, politicians, and press.

Given that Roosevelt was known for his whistle-stop  campaigns, turning out to see his funeral train was a particularly apt way of bidding farewell to the wartime President.  Indeed, RFK also undertook a whistle-stop campaign in Oregon, just a matter of weeks before his assassination.  Comparing the images of this to those from his funeral train, and reading descriptions of the atmosphere on board, one can't help but think how fitting it was that RFK's funeral elicited the spirit of inclusive participatory democracy that characterised his politics and his campaign.

- F.D. Fuentes Rettig, Curator North American Collections

 

The issue of Look Fusco originally printed his images in can be found at shelfmark P.P.6392.la., they appear in the RFK special memorial issue which hit the shelves late June, 1968.  They can also be seen in his seminal photobook RFK: Funeral Train, shelfmark LB.31.a.10247 , and subsequent expanded publication Paul Fusco: RFK shelfmark, LC.37.a.312 .  Jean Stein's American Journey, a collection of interviews with some of the passengers aboard RFK's funeral train is at shelfmark A70/3547.  Bill Epstein's collection of campaign photographs, A Time It Was can be found at LC.31.a.6397, and Harry Benson's RFK: A Photographer's Journal is currently on order.  Full descriptions of the Washington stages of both Senator Kennedy and President F.D. Roosevelt's funerals can be found in B.C. Mossman and M.W. Stark's The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals, shelfmark A.S.573/59. or online here.  See also Michael Leavy, The Lincoln Funeral, shelfmark YKL.2016.b.2629 .

 

 

Left: X-Men Anthology featuring Gateway. Right: The compiled Millennium series, featuring Betty Clawman. See endnotes for publication details.

After reading Luke Pearson’s blog post on Indigenous X about Indigenous Australian characters in comic books, I decided to see what comics the British Library held that represented Indigenous Australasian characters.[1] Instead of reiterating Pearson’s existing article, which I recommend reading, I have simply listed the comics I was able to find and their shelfmarks at the end of the post. The Condoman poster for a sexual health campaign is a great example of how comic characters can appeal to and educate children and teenagers. By making Condoman an Indigenous man there is a clear relatability for the Indigenous teens that this poster was aimed at.

It is clear that creating characters that readers or viewers can identify with is important; it provides a role model that one can recognise themselves in. Ryan Griffen, creator of the television show Cleverman – a program centred on Indigenous Australian characters and inspired by Indigenous culture, explained how he had created Cleverman so his son had Indigenous superheroes he could be as excited by as he was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
‘I wanted to create an Aboriginal superhero that he could connect with, no matter what others said. I wanted a character that would empower him to stand and fight when presented with racism. Just like the old dreaming stories, Cleverman would be able to teach moral lessons; not only for my son, not just for Aboriginal people, but for many more out there as well.’[2]
As Pearson points out, the majority of the Indigenous characters he lists were created by non-Indigenous people. I was interested in how some of these Indigenous characters were depicted so decided to focus on one of them, a DC character named Betty Clawman. She appears in the Millennium comic, the compilation of which is in the British Library collections.[3]

Betty does not appear until week two of the series, where she is found squatting by ‘the aptly named Ayres Rock, near Alice Springs, Australia.’[4]  The comic series was produced three years after custodianship of Uluru was returned to the Anangu traditional owners so it seems likely this event caught the international imagination and resulted in Indigenous Australians being associated with Uluru. Ayres Rock was the name that colonisers gave the rock, it was named after a South Australian Premier called Sir Henry Ayres, I am unsure how this makes it ‘aptly named’ and I assume it underlines how little research the comic writers had undertaken into Indigenous Australian history and culture. Betty has been selected as one of a group of people to become immortal guardians of earth, a fact she already knew before she was approached as she foresaw it in the ‘Dreamtime.’[5] While Betty seems to impress the existing Guardians, she is rather passive throughout the encounter and makes multiple references to dreaming and the land – ‘while I, rather than dreaming on the land, learn how to wake from its embrace!’[6] These vague references around dreamings and land could also be reference to a half-formed understanding of Indigenous culture through the debates surrounding the return of Uluru. It seems no coincidence, however, that this comic was produced in 1988, the same year Australia celebrated the Bicentennial of its ‘founding’. On 26^th January 1988 (Australia Day) Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike took to the streets to protest the celebration of two-hundred years of history that tried to rewrite the 40,000 years of history Indigenous Australia had prior to British conquest. The protests sought to highlight ongoing denial of land rights along with the integral structural racism Indigenous Australians often experienced. It would be interesting to know how much of this political background Englehart, Staton and Gibson were aware of when they conceived Betty Clawman.

The other future Guardians set to join Betty suggests that the writers were keen to create an inclusive and diverse range of characters, yet they fell into the trap of easy cultural stereotypes (another future Guardian is Xiang Po, a Chinese woman who seizes the opportunity because ‘it never would have happened before the reforms)[7]. While I understand that the pages of comic books do not lend themselves to nuance and subtlety, it is a shame that the characters are so stereotyped. Betty’s willingness to follow the existing Guardians could at first be taken as passivity, but she often shows that she is confident and intelligent, such as questioning the teachings that the universe is logical. She is fore fronted in the cartoon frames and praised for her readiness to become a Guardian. I was very excited about the empowering depiction of Betty until the selected new Guardians transitioned into their new forms – the stereotyping became almost comical again: Xiang Po becomes incredibly sexy and her whole appearance is Westernised. Betty quite simply disappears! She becomes an invisible spirit that is simultaneously part of the earth and the other Guardians but no longer visible or audible; she informs others and perhaps shapes their actions but can no longer take actions herself.

This characterisation of the spiritual silent Indigenous person is reminiscent of Gateway, the Indigenous character Marvel created the same year the DC created Betty Clawman. Like Betty in her Guardian form, Gateway is silent and only communicates through telepathy. He simply sits and watches the actions of the X-Men, opening portals for them on request.[8] From my close reading of these two comics and looking at the Indigenous characters on Pearson’s list, it does seem that if writers want a mysterious character that is imbued with spirituality, they make that character Indigenous. While there is perhaps nothing necessarily wrong with depicting an Indigenous person as deeply wise and spiritual, it becomes problematic when that is all they are shown as. It firmly places Indigenous Australians in a position of ‘other’, making it difficult for Indigenous people to identify with those characters, let alone other comic book fans.

Joanne Pilcher is currently carrying out a PhD placement project at the British Library, exploring contemporary publishing in Australia. If you would like to know more about placement opportunities at the Library for doctoral students please click here.

In my placement at the Library I have suggested the purchase of comic books that show a wide variety of Indigenous characters and complex personalities. If you have any other good suggestions do tweet me: @JoannePilcher1

Comic books/graphic novels in the British Library Collections that feature Indigenous Australian characters:

Grant Morrison et al, The Multiversity: the deluxe edition, New York: DC Comics, 2015, [shelfmark: General Reference Collection YKL.2017.b.559]

Hugh Dolan, Adrian Threlfall, Reg Saunders: An Indigenous War Hero, Sydney, NSW, Australia: NewSouth, 2015 [shelfmark: General Reference Collection YKL.2017.b.766]

Marvel Comics, Essential X-Men, Volume 8, New York, N.Y. : Marvel Publishing ; London : Diamond, distributor, 2007, [General Reference Collection YK.2009.b.171]

Steve Englehart, Joe Staton, Ian Gibson, Millennium: Trust No One, DC Comics, New York 2008. [shelfmark: General Reference Collection YK.2009.b.9556]

 

References:

[1] Luke Pearson, ‘The Wombat to Kaptn Koori – Aboriginal Representation in Comic Books and Capes,’ Indigenous X, 13^th June 2017, https://indigenousx.com.au/luke-pearson-the-wombat-to-kaptn-koori-aboriginal-representation-in-comic-books-and-capes/#.Wm8DF1hLHcs, [last accessed 29/01/18]

[2] Ryan Griffen, ‘We need more Aboriginal superheroes, so I created Cleverman for my son’, The Guardian, 27^th may 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/27/i-created-cleverman-for-my-son-because-we-need-more-aboriginal-superheroes, [last accessed 29/01/18]

[3] Steve Englehart, Joe Staton, Ian Gibson, Millennium: Trust No One, DC Comics, New York 2008. Originally published as an eight part magazine series in 1988. [shelfmark: General Reference Collection YK.2009.b.9556]

[4] Millennium, DC Comics, p32

[5] ibid

[6] ibid p33

[7] ibid p40

[8] Marvel Comics, Essential X-Men, Volume 8, New York, N.Y. : Marvel Publishing ; [London : Diamond, distributor], 2007, [General Reference Collection YK.2009.b.171]. Originally printed as serial magazines in 1988.

It is always a great pleasure when you find your research coinciding with that of your colleagues. There has been a recent spike in discussions around American music and World War I in the Eccles Centre as Jean Petrovic is currently developing an online exhibition showcasing the British Library’s excellent collection of American sheet music, whilst I am researching American musicals of the early 1940s which looked back at World War I and vaudeville. 

As part of her project, Jean has been focusing on World War I, which saw an explosion in printed music. At the turn of the twentieth century – prior to the rise of radio and the phonograph – pianos were still the main source of home entertainment. Recent innovations in production had bought about a sharp decline in prices and an inevitable rise in demand. Not surprisingly, this was a boom-time for song-writers and music publishers. Print runs of top-selling songs frequently exceeded hundreds of thousands and between 1900 and 1910 more than 100 songs sold over one million copies.

More than 10,000 songs about World War I were published in the United States during 1914-18. In the early days, many of these songs echoed the non-interventionist stance of President Woodrow Wilson and most Americans.

Within days of the US declaration of war in 1917, George M Cohan, already one of the country’s most successful songwriters, penned ‘Over There’. With its patriotic call to arms, its optimism and its references to liberty and the American flag it went on to become the nation’s favourite war song. It was performed and recorded by many artists and eventually sold more than two million copies.

Above: George Michael Cohan. Over There. New York: Wm Jerome Publishing Corp., c1917.  British Library shelfmark a.318.(5) (other versions, h.3825.z.(52); h.1562; H.1860.i.(8); h.3825.ff.(7)); image courtesy of the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.100010518

In 1936, President Franklin D Roosevelt presented Cohan with the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of his contribution to US morale during World War I.  He was the first person in an artistic field to receive this honour.

And this is where I come in. During America’s participation in World War II, a notable body of musical films were produced which reflected on the current crisis through the historical metaphor of America’s role in World War I. By binding these wartime stories with settings concerned with vaudeville and performance, these films conveyed patriotic messages and made entertainment culture central to American values. 

Above: promotional poster for Yankee Doodle Dandy (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1942, Warner Brothers)

In 1942, director Michael Curtiz made Yankee Doodle Dandy, a biopic about Cohan’s life. The narrative is framed by Cohan, in the present day, going to visit President Roosevelt at the White House where he discusses his career and receives the Congressional Gold Medal (despite the award actually being made 6 years previously). In the urgent context of World War II the film places Cohan (but also by extension Hollywood itself) as vital agents in America’s cultural mythmaking: the inclusion of his famous, popular songs (‘Over There’, ‘Give My Regards to Broadway’, ‘The Yankee Doodle Boy’ and ‘You’re a Grand Old Flag’) and production numbers involving a lot (and I mean A LOT) of flags, allow the fictional President Roosevelt to comment to Cohan that “your songs were weapons as strong as cannons and rifles in World War I."

Interesting, whilst the film was certainly an important part of Warner Brothers Studio’s commitment to the war effort, aimed partially at legitimizing their own work in the context of the war, the unashamedly patriotic film also served an interesting purpose for its star, James Cagney, who had personally struggled to deny Communist links.

Cagney had initially been opposed to making a Cohan biopic as he’d disliked Cohan since the Actor’s Equity Strike in 1919 when Cohan had sided with the producers. However, during the late 1930s and early 1940s Cagney had run-ins with the Dies Committee (the House Un-American Activities Committee): in 1940 he was named along with 15 other Hollywood figures in the testimony of John R Leech (an LA Communist Party leader) and the New York Times printed the allegation that Cagney was a Communist on its front page (August 15, 1940).

Although Cagney refuted the allegations and Martin Dies made a statement to the press clearing him, his brother, William Cagney, who managed his business affairs is reported to have said that “we’re going to have to make the [most] goddamndest patriotic picture that’s ever been made. I think it’s the Cohan story.”[1] The film certainly achieves this aim: Cagney went on to win an Oscar for the role (and the film was a huge box office success for Warners).

For those interested in learning more about the American sheet music collection at the British Library, Jean’s web exhibition will go live later this summer.  In the meantime, an older incarnation of the project can be found here.

I will be discussing ‘American Film Musicals and the Reimagining of World War I’ as part of the British Library’s Feed the Mind series on Monday 21 May at 12.30 in the Knowledge Centre. I can promise clips of Gene Kelly, which must rate as one of the best ways to pass a lunch break. I hope you’ll be able to join me.

By: Dr Cara Rodway, Deputy Head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies, with thanks to Jean Petrovic, Bibliographical Editor.

 

[1] Patrick McGilligan, Cagney: The Actor as Auteur (New York & London: Tantivy Press, 1975), pp145-8 [shelfmark: General Reference Collection X.981/20794]