American Patriotism Research Articles

Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism by Lindsay Schakenbach Regele (review)

Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism by Lindsay Schakenbach Regele (review)

Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism

Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism

Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11 by John Bodnar (review)

Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11 by John Bodnar (review)

John Witherspoon and Slavery

Like many of the American Founders, Witherspoon was influential and successful in several different pursuits. We are right to remember him as an important Christian pastor, as an American patriot, and as Princeton's first great president. The question we must ask, then, is whether this man and his accomplishments are rendered suspect, or at least made moot, because of one issue: slavery. On the one hand there is much in what Witherspoon said and did that shows him to be an opponent of slavery. While a pastor in Scotland, he baptized a runaway slave belonging to one of the leading members of his church. Later at Princeton, Witherspoon gladly taught free Blacks. His stated opinions—in writing and in lectures—were uniformly against slavery. He voiced objections to mistreating slaves and urged masters to instruct their slaves and equip them for future freedom. On the other hand, Witherspoon owned slaves. For many, that's all we need to know to denounce Witherspoon as self-serving hypocrite. Yet, we should look more closely at the historical record. Until now, Witherspoon has been condemned as an enslaver on mainly one piece of paper: an inventory prepared after his death that listed among his property two slaves. Even this line has not been quoted in its entirety or considered alongside the other contemporaneous account of his possessions. The full record needs a fuller explanation. Despite his flaws, there is little doubt that Witherspoon was, on the whole, more enlightened on the issue of slavery than many of his generation, and less personally complicit in the evils of slavery than many of our country's most celebrated founders.

The Life and Travails of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Nuclear Scientist

‘Oppenheimer’ is a 2023 epic, biographical film about an American theoretical physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer. He is considered the “father of the atomic bomb”. The film is brilliantly written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film, based on the 2005 biography “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, chronicles the complex and consequential career of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The story begins with Oppenheimer's postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge (England) and at the University of Göttingen (Germany), details his direction of the Manhattan Project during World War II in developing nuclear weapons at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico (USA), and ends with his eventual fall from grace due to his 1954 security hearing based on the false premise that J. Robert Oppenheimer was a communist spy who was passing secret information on nuclear research to the Soviet Union. Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ is the pinnacle of movie making. Nolan has delicately interwoven the intricate domains of quantum physics, human ingenuity, cruel politics, morality, legality, and ethics into a timely masterpiece and into an explosive emotional thriller. The four principal cast members (1) Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, (2) Emily Blunt as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer (wife), (3) Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, and (4) Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss perform their role flawlessly. Murphy, in particular, uncannily acts and resembles the real─life J. Robert Oppenheimer. In addition, the performances by Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock and by Tom Conti as Albert Einstein are superb. The story is told in alternating black and white (Strauss’ version of events) and color (Oppenheimer’s version of events) scenes. The haunting musical score by Ludwig Göransson synchronizes perfectly with the movie plot. When the bomb explodes at the Trinity climax scene, the sound goes totally silent! Oppenheimer’s story is the real─life vindication of the truth after 68 years (1954─2022). A must watch Nolan’s thriller for this Nuclear Age! Thus, the said movie has triggered me to make an attempt to comprehensively capture the chronology of events covering 153 years of history (1870─2023) associated with J. Robert Oppenheimer, some events not covered in the movie plot is included in this review article with 48 Figures and 8 Appendixes. The purpose is to permanently etch in history the scientific contributions made by J. Robert Oppenheimer and by his colleagues at the Manhattan Project, which not only ended the World War II, but also sprung open a new world of freedom for humanity. Let there be no doubt that J. Robert Oppenheimer was a genuine patriotic American of our time and therefore, my only fervent hope is that our generation acknowledges, remembers, and admires their contributions and sacrifices, without which the fragile freedom that we enjoy today, even after 80 years later, would not have been possible. His legacy is one of historical greatness.

제2차 세계대전 기간 미국의 핀업 걸에 나타난 애국주의

During World War II, Pin-Ups played a big role in military propaganda. At the time, Pin-Ups weren’t just about comforting soldiers on the battlefield. Therein lay a uniquely American patriotism. In a liberal country like the United States, it is difficult to ask citizens to defend the country, so American politicians had to appeal to private obligations, first and foremost the moral obligations that exist between men and women. Pin-Ups were a useful tool to arouse men’s patriotism by conveying the message that they should defend their wives and girlfriends on the mainland.
 Meanwhile, American women were able to find their own new sexual identity through Pin-Ups. The conventions that confined women to the roles of wife and mother were broken during the war. New attributes of independence and assertiveness were spreading among American women. The Pin-Up Girl, an icon of the active and desirable woman, was a useful model for American women to create a new self.
 With the end of World War II and the return of men from overseas, the social climate for women returned to the past. A country that had actively supported women’s mobilization into the workforce during the war now began to tell women that it was their patriotic duty to return home. Women lost their place in the workplace and men-only magazines like Playboy became popular. However, the sense of liberation that American women experienced during the war, and the experience of living as full members of society, would later lead to the American women’s movement of the 1960s.

John Bodnar. Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11.

John Bodnar. <i>Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11</i>.

Scaleboard Binding

This article discusses the history and possible reasons for the extended production of scaleboard bindings in America. Using an example of a scaleboard binding in the Baldwin Children's Library, this article also concludes with the possible ties between the colonial capitalist market and the burgeoning fervor of American patriotism. A discussion of how conservators repair and maintain these fragile books for present and future study is also articulated.

The Curation of American Patriotism: The American Legion and The Story of Our American People

Abstract: Attempts to frame the memory of military conflicts have often been driven by veterans' organizations whose members participated in the fighting. This article argues that, in the United States, the newly formed American Legion sought to control the national narrative of the Great War as part of its wider, ambitious project of Americanization and "100% Americanism," in particular via the curation and development of a school history textbook intended to deliver its ideology into every schoolhouse in the United States. In so doing, it revealed the contested nature of history writing, the depth of contemporary concerns over the value of history as a discipline and the difficulties of eliding the history of the American past with the concept of Americanization, especially in terms of sectionalism, race, immigration and empire.

The Curation of American Patriotism: The American Legion and The Story of Our American People

Abstract: Attempts to frame the memory of military conflicts have often been driven by veterans' organizations whose members participated in the fighting. This article argues that, in the United States, the newly formed American Legion sought to control the national narrative of the Great War as part of its wider, ambitious project of Americanization and "100% Americanism," in particular via the curation and development of a school history textbook intended to deliver its ideology into every schoolhouse in the United States. In so doing, it revealed the contested nature of history writing, the depth of contemporary concerns over the value of history as a discipline and the difficulties of eliding the history of the American past with the concept of Americanization, especially in terms of sectionalism, race, immigration and empire.

The law of loyalism: The Campbell family, the court of session, and the price of loyalty in the revolutionary Atlantic world

ABSTRACT This essay reconstructs the experiences of prominent Charleston merchant Colin Campbell, and his niece Louisa Campbell, to explore how Scots loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution later defended their interests in Scotland’s Court of Session. Using the case of Campbell and Ferrier v. Campbells (1796) as an organizing framework, it demonstrates how Scots litigated their suffering at the hands of American Patriots. It shows how lawsuits like it were embedded in a larger transatlantic legal ecosystem that shaped their outcome. The legal contest between Louisa Campbell and her cousins over Colin Campbell’s American property tied together legislatures and courts in South Carolina, Georgia, London, and Edinburgh. By doing so, they compelled the Lords of Session, the judges who sat on the bench of Scotland’s supreme civil court, to define American Independence.

Warrior Spirit: The Story of Native American Patriotism and Heroism by Herman J. Viola (review)

Warrior Spirit: The Story of Native American Patriotism and Heroism by Herman J. Viola (review)

Ministers of a New Medium: Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier by Kirk D. Farney

Reviewed by: Ministers of a New Medium: Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier by Kirk D. Farney Kathryn M. Galchutt Ministers of a New Medium: Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier. By Kirk D. Farney. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2022. 345 pp. In our multi-media saturated times, it is difficult to imagine the singular importance of radio during its golden age, from the 1920s to the 1950s. During that era before television, the essayist E. B. White described radio as having a "godlike presence" in homes across America. In his book Kirk Farney notes that radio had a range of qualities, from intimate to communal, from democratic to authoritative. Yet Farney's study is less concerned with the medium of radio and more concerned with the impact of two men and the messages they spoke to millions during the 1930s and 1940s. The Lutheran pastor Walter A. Maier (1893–1950) and the Roman Catholic priest Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) were two of the most popular and prominent broadcasters during radio's golden age. Both men came from religious backgrounds that were considered on the periphery of mainstream American Protestant religion. Maier came from a German-American Lutheran background and was a member of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, a synod which some saw as an ethnic and theological enclave. Sheen came from a primarily Irish-American Catholic background and sought to counter the historic anti-Catholicism in American society. Farney explains how Maier and Sheen preached messages rooted in their own religious traditions, yet succeeded in appealing to wider audiences. Both men "combined a traditional theological conservatism with an equally traditional American idealism" (133). Maier and Sheen took to the airwaves after the Modernist and Fundamentalist debates of the 1920s. Both men were vocal critics of modernist [End Page 191] theology. They preached messages of traditional Christian theology, putting a strong emphasis on the doctrines of the atonement, sin, and grace. Given the well-known antagonism between Protestants and Catholics, it is remarkable that the Protestant Maier and the Catholic Sheen asserted such similar teachings about the foundations for faith and life (160). Maier and Sheen also made connections with the difficult times in which they were living, commenting on the economic challenges of the Great Depression, the conflicts and controversies of World War II, and the threat of communism. Both were careful to avoid partisan politics. But they reflected a spirit of American patriotism while also calling on Americans to repent and to avoid a stance of national self-righteousness. Farney notes that Maier and Sheen were critical of racial and ethnic discrimination in America and urged the church to recognize the equality of all people before God (257). Farney could have done more to explain the significance of their stances in the context of American race relations in the 1930s and 1940s. Both men reached out to many beyond their respective religious communities. Farney describes how Sheen received considerable attention for the prominent converts to Catholicism whom he reached, including Henry Ford II and the American Communist Party leader Louis Budenz. Besides the famous, Sheen also reached "the obscure … of all races and incomes" (297). Farney describes Maier's contacts with political, military, and cultural leaders, but did not mention specific converts. More could be done to examine those who made a commitment to Lutheranism because of Maier's "The Lutheran Hour." Among these are Mary Banta, who contributed to the development of True Light Lutheran Church, a Chinese-American congregation in Manhattan and Chris McNair, who lost his daughter Denise in the Klan bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. Exploring the international impact of the "Catholic Hour" and "The Lutheran Hour" is another potential area of future research. Farney has written a very significant study of two of the most important radio preachers in American history, examining the similar ministries of a Lutheran pastor and Catholic priest. The parallels ended when Maier died relatively early of a massive heart attack [End Page 192] in 1950 and Sheen transitioned to even greater fame with a...

Gettysburg 1963: Civil Rights, Cold War Politics, and Historical Memory in America’s Most Famous Small Town by Jill Ogline Titus

Reviewed by: Gettysburg 1963: Civil Rights, Cold War Politics, and Historical Memory in America’s Most Famous Small Town by Jill Ogline Titus Erin Krutko Devlin (bio) Gettysburg 1963: Civil Rights, Cold War Politics, and Historical Memory in America’s Most Famous Small Town. By Jill Ogline Titus. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. 264. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $27.95.) As Jill Ogline Titus reminds readers in Gettysburg 1963, newspaper coverage of the Civil War centennial was distributed alongside stories about the burgeoning Black freedom struggle and debates about Cold War politics and policies. Gettysburg 1963 strives to help readers understand how these threads of American cultural and political life converged on the Gettysburg battlefield, illuminating a contested landscape in which commemorative rhetoric was shaped by a desire to forge a memory of 1863 that could be mobilized in service of a wide range of social and political aims one hundred years later. Titus notes that formal commemorative bodies, such as the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission, often sought to mobilize a reconciliation-ist vision of the war that emphasized military valor, technological progress, and reunification, which served the broader purpose of reanimating American patriotism and encouraging heritage tourism in the midst of the Cold War. Yet Titus also notes that this narrative was never unchallenged in the commemorative activity surrounding the centennial. She illustrates how an emancipatory memory of the war as a “new birth of freedom” sought to frame the conflict through the lens of racial justice during the civil rights movement, while Lost Cause rhetoric was mobilized to recast resistance to desegregation as the preservation of states’ rights. As Titus demonstrates, both of these alternative strands of memory also sought to tether their memorial claims to the politics of the Cold War, with those promoting an emancipationist vision arguing that the failure to address racial injustice undercut the nation’s position as a beacon of democracy, and those promoting the Lost Cause narrative contending that opposition to civil rights legislation served as a bulwark against government overreach and totalitarianism. Titus argues that these divergent and diverse approaches to memorializing Gettysburg meant that commemorative activities at the battlefield in 1963 “were employed simultaneously to champion racial equality, legitimize midcentury anti-government sentiments and activities, and strengthen the U.S. position internationally” (5). Gettysburg 1963 is focused on official commemorative activity— speeches, pageants, exhibits, and battlefield reenactments—but Titus evocatively notes that participants and visitors exposed to these divergent [End Page 274] interpretations of the war were not passive spectators. “Participants,” she writes, “did not simply absorb the commemoration’s messaging wholesale, but rather made decisions about where and how to participate (and what ideas to embrace) that ensured a variety of different takeaways about the connections between 1863 and 1963” (84). Indeed, Titus concludes that the divergent commemorative narratives presented during the centennial substantially disrupted the reconciliationist rhetoric promoted by the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission and Gettysburg National Military Park in 1963, with both emancipationist and Lost Cause narratives rising in prominence in the years that followed. Titus explores public reception of these competing strands of memory most directly in her discussion of audience attendance at or reaction to various pageants, roundtables, and public addresses. She is particularly attentive to local participation in commemorative activities on the battlefield’s national stage. Indeed, Gettysburg 1963 examines how national debate about the meaning and memory of the Civil War battle played out locally in the community of Gettysburg itself and nearby Gettysburg College, where Titus currently serves as associate director of the Civil War Institute. Titus notes that local residents had a particular stake in the way the centennial was positioned in relation to heritage tourism and were invested in debates about the appropriate balance between commercialization and battlefield preservation as they sought to harness the economic potential of the centennial. Titus also demonstrates how the borough struggled with its own history of racial segregation and discrimination. The international attention focused on Gettysburg in 1963 provided the local Black community with the leverage needed to push white business owners toward the meaningful desegregation of public accommodations. Gettysburg 1963 will resonate most powerfully for...

Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston

Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston

An upswing to something better: Social space and the upward climb in vaudeville theatre

Vaudeville theatre was an important visual form of popular culture and entertainment that featured such specialty acts as comedy and song and dance, as well as lectures, lantern slide shows and motion pictures with subject matter from faraway lands, and themes of American patriotism. American vaudeville began in nineteenth-century saloons as floorshows and burlesque, but it was eventually upgraded to family entertainment, which appealed to middle- and upper-class audiences, before individual theatres were subsumed by franchised theatre chains. Vaudeville theatre directors, who were known as impresarios, programmed an innovative spectrum of acts that ranged from classical music and art to folk songs, and to acrobats, which appealed to a wide range of social classes. Following the theories of Henri Lefebvre, the social space of the theatre became a conceptually dynamic space, where class distinctions blurred and audience members could then dream of life in a higher social station, or what American Mid Victorians knew as ‘self-improvement’. A conundrum emerges, however, when we see that most of the programmes were plentiful with racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, which were entertaining to White audience members. The vertical social climb of the gilded age in the 1900s was complicated with the social relations of uneasy, decadent consumerism. Individuals driven by desire thought their ‘un-comfort’ might be remedied by entertainment, as they looked for an upswing to something better.

Ireland and America: Empire, Revolution, and Sovereignty ed. by Patrick Griffin and Francis D. Cogliano

Reviewed by: Ireland and America: Empire, Revolution, and Sovereignty ed. by Patrick Griffin and Francis D. Cogliano Nicola Martin (bio) Ireland, Early United States, American Revolution, Empire, Imperialism, Sovereignty Ireland and America: Empire, Revolution, and Sovereignty. Edited by Patrick Griffin and Francis D. Cogliano. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021. Pp. 356. Cloth, $49.50.) This volume is the fruit of a conference held to examine Ireland and America as places that were both shaped by, and actively shaped, empire and revolution. Patrick Griffin and Francis D. Cogliano have done an excellent job in selecting and drawing together thirteen broadly ranging, both chronologically and geographically, contributions to achieve their aim of complicating current understandings of both places. Written by renowned experts in Atlantic history, the essays employ a wide range of sources to interrogate various aspects of empire and revolution, all engaging with the central comparative of the volume to frame their studies. The essays in Part One provide direct comparisons between Ireland and America on themes including resistance to empire, alternatives to independence, and the experiences of dominant minorities in the empire. Those in Part Two broaden out to examine a number of themes related to the revolutionary era, such as mapping, religion and ideology, and post-independence readjustments, using the comparative as a framework for their investigations. In many ways Nicholas Canny's opening essay sets up that comparative, demonstrating how Irish Catholics interacted with, and were characterized by, European empires from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Canny posits this group as one that was part of, yet also somewhat apart from, both Europe and empire. Having set the scene of Irish interactions and position in the Atlantic world, the remaining essays in Part One deal [End Page 163] with a wide range of issues that demonstrate connections and disconnects between Ireland and America. Gordon S. Wood uses revolutionary pamphlets to demonstrate how patriot polemicists used the Irish example, sometimes distorting it in the process, to set out their arguments as to why Parliament had no constitutional authority over them. Eliga Gould outlines a third way between independence and continued subordination, which Ireland achieved through its negotiated settlement of 1782 and which demonstrated a significant divergence from the American patriots, for whom such an option was no longer acceptable. Other essays in Part One are concerned with the volume's key themes of mobilization and imperial attitudes. T. H. Breen posits the British response to the Boston Tea Party and the Easter Rising, rather than the events themselves, as the spark for popular mobilization, while Matthew P. Dziennik emphasises the importance of military mobilization for reinforcing British and American attitudes toward the Irish. Trevor Burnard rounds off Part One with an examination of the development of new imperial attitudes within both the British imperial elite and the imperial populations of Jamaica and Ireland in the 1780s, demonstrating the consequences of the American Revolution throughout the British Atlantic world. In Part Two, the essays move away from direct comparison to a broader framework that draws on the earlier arguments about connections and disconnect to provide important insights to America and the wider Atlantic world before, during, and after the Revolution. Highlights include Max Edelson's study of cadastral maps to illustrate the ad hoc system the British and its imperial peoples used to allocate land throughout the empire during the seventeenth century, a system that invariably ignored Indigenous systems of land allocation. Rachel Banke's investigation of the correspondence and papers of the Earl of Bute and King George III is another important contribution. Banke examines the papers to outline the key tenets of their ideas for imperial reform, convincingly arguing that these were shaped by European influences as a result of George's "enlightened absolutism" (212) and the realities of the post-Seven Years' War context. A key theme running through several essays in Part Two is the new realities and questions of nation and statehood created by the American Revolution. Jessica Choppin Roney examines the co-opting of the Declaration of Independence by Americans who sought support for their own bids for statehood, while Annette Gordon-Reed outlines the constitutional questions arising from the revolution and...

JohnBodnar, Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021

JohnBodnar, Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021

Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism by Ben Railton (review)

Reviewed by: Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism by Ben Railton Brian Whetstone Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism. By Ben Railton. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021. ix + 194 pp. Note on sources, index. $36.00 cloth. The tumultuous administration of Donald Trump and ensuing initiatives to examine American history and identity, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones's 1619 Project, have produced extensive public and academic conversations about American patriotism and identity. Ben Railton's Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism intervenes in these scholarly and popular debates, tracing the history of American patriotism from the American Revolutionary era to the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s before concluding with a reflection on patriotism in the age of Trump. Railton's method reflects his background in English and American literature as he draws upon the writings and cultural works of a diverse spectrum of Americans across the nation's history, including such disparate works as Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the passionate appeal of Ponca chief Standing Bear in his 1879 trial, and the Wizard of Oz to underscore the appeal of patriotic sentiments across time. Less interested in rooting his analysis in original archival research, Of Thee I Sing works well as a broad synthesis of secondary literature on American patriotism, and Railton's accompanying Note on Sources will surely serve as a useful entry point for students and scholars of American identity looking to expand their research beyond Railton's overview. Railton identifies four varieties of United States patriotism: celebratory, mythic, active, and critical. Celebratory patriotism encompasses actions and shared rituals like the national anthem invested in portraying the US uncrit ically as the "greatest country in the world." Mythic patriotism, Railton argues, is the most dangerous because it generates mythologized narratives about the past that increasingly divided the US into communities perceived to belong to an idealized nation and "those overtly and violently excluded from it." In contrast to celebratory and mythic patriotism, active and critical patriotism constitute more constructive and inclusive patriotic impulses. The former involves active commitments to the US such as military service, social activism, and protest, while the latter stems from a desire to right historical wrongs and drive the country to live up to its high ideals for all Americans. Railton devotes considerable attention to developments in the Great Plains, particularly westward expansion, that generated expressions of critical patriotism, such as the works of Helen Hunt Jackson in the nineteenth century and the American Indian Movement in the late twentieth century. While Railton's work succeeds at introducing readers to a wide cast of historical actors, his analysis and insistence on dividing patriotism into four primary expressions tends to oversimplify complex historical developments. While characters come and go through each of the eras Railton analyzes, the four varieties of patriotism are unyielding and unchanging, presenting American history as one timeless, unchanging struggle between those who subscribe to celebratory and mythic forms of patriotism and those who place faith in active and critical patriotism. Despite this oversimplification, Of Thee I Sing still offers an important historical intervention into contemporary debates about American patriotism, nationalism, and identity. [End Page 111] Brian Whetstone Department of History University of Massachusetts Amherst Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

The Critical Reception of Mark Twain's Introduction to English as She is Taught

The Critical Reception of Mark Twain's Introduction to <i>English as She is Taught</i>