The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927 by Amie Marsh Jones

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927 by Amie Marsh Jones Arnie Bernstein Amie Marsh Jones. The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927. Self-published, 2021. Pp. 235. Bibliography. Notes. Photographs. Paperback: $24.99. The May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, unfolded on television in what is now a familiar pattern. The story was easy to cover, something that is both ironic and infuriating. Since the Columbine High School shooting of April 20, 1999, in Columbine, Colorado, a template has evolved for media outlets covering large-scale school murder—a configuration used for mass school killings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and so many others. Cable news and broadcast networks interrupt their regular programming using the requisite plan to cover the unfolding horror. The relied-upon elements include reporters on the scene telling what they know, repeated images of victims fleeing the school grounds, interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors, law enforcement officials giving press conferences, and ubiquitous graphics coupled with dramatic music. In recent years, social media has gained ground in this unblinking coverage, with people inside the schools posting cell phone videos on TikTok and Twitter. Viewers are thrust onto the violent front lines in real time. It wasn’t always like this. On May 18, 1927, in the small farming community of Bath, Michigan, about sixteen miles outside of Lansing, an explosion rocked the local consolidated school, demolishing the north wing of the building in a matter of seconds. Not far from the scene, a farmhouse owned by Andrew Kehoe, a school trustee, was ablaze. Kehoe drove to the school, where he blew himself up in his truck, killing others in the process. The next day, the remains of his wife, Nellie, were found burned beyond recognition at the smoldering remains of their home. Five hundred pounds of dynamite were discovered beneath the undamaged main portion the school building; it was later estimated that about one hundred pounds of dynamite went off beneath the ruined north wing. In total, thirty-eight children and four adults were murdered, in addition to the deaths of Kehoe and Nellie. A sign found on the edge of Kehoe’s farm read “Killers Are Made, Not Born.” The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927 by Amie M. Jones is a thoughtful consideration of how America’s first mass school killing was reported by contemporary news sources. Just as today, people of the time wanted to know the basics of the massacre. Like modern audiences, they turned to the media for information. But in 1927 news reporting was mostly limited to newspapers. To a lesser extent, movie newsreels also got the word out. Radio, still struggling to find its voice, was not much of a factor. [End Page 120] There is an axiom, attributed to many sources, that newspapers are first rough draft of history. This adage provides a baseline that threads throughout the book, as Jones digs into the many tabloid stories by the reporters who headed to Bath in the wake the crime. In addition to Michigan papers, The New York Times and the Chicago Daily Tribune sent reporters to the scene. The Bath School bombing required a vocabulary necessary to match the terror of its sole perpetrator. The word “fiend” was often used to describe Kehoe. A common theme within the reportage was Kehoe’s terrorism contrasted to the town of Bath as a bucolic victim. This juxtaposition further emphasized the devastation, both physical and psychological, one man rendered upon his neighbors. The Bath School bombing was an incredible story, but it was wiped from front pages just a few days later when Charles Lindbergh took off from New York on his daring flight solo flight to Paris. The country—indeed, the world— was mad for “Lucky Lindy.” The media frenzy in Bath dissipated, which was probably the best thing that could have happened. A town bonded in collective mourning was no longer the hot story. Though repercussions of...