A Historian Reads: Coming of Age in Buffalo

As the previous review of Grace Palladino's Teenager: An American History noted, studies of youth and youth culture have unfortunately fallen to the trap of homogenizing a culture in the efforts to understand it. William Graebner's 1987 book Coming of Age in Buffalo was an early attempt to introduce diversity to the study of youth. He argues that youth are not all the same across the nation. Instead of approaching youth strictly as an age group, Graebner offers readers the option of looking at youth through the regional, racial, social, religious, and economic sub groups that they belong to. He does this by presenting Buffalo, NY as a case study and example of how to approach youth from the regional perspective.

Youth in Buffalo are divided by race and religion, notes Graebner, and this impacts how these youth interacted and behaved. Also important to note, is that these differences also influenced how adult authority figures reacted to these youth and their feelings towards them. Graebner uses school yearbooks, church pamphlets, and parent teacher association publications to teach readers about these divisions. However, Graebner quickly notes that these materials, even those produced by high school students, are ultimately filtered through adult authority figures and embedded with their ideas of propriety and youth. Here he stumbles upon one of the greatest problems facing historians of youth cultures and "deviant" cultures. They are rarely the creators of the primary sources about them. As seen in studies regarding teenage pregnancy in the 1940's and LGBT communities in the early twentieth century, many of the primary sources used by historians in their research are created by those in the dominant culture who record these communities and individuals using their social lenses. Youth are similarly impacted by these phenomenon because much of what they consume or create is done through the help of adults who generally exercise greater power and influence. Graebner identifies this issue and quick to note the fallacy that it creates. Studying youth often leads to greater information about adults.

This books is relatively short in length for a university press, however it is packed with detailed information about Buffalo teen culture and the diversity within. It does so through very clear writing and organization that is never confusing, overwhelming, or dull. More importantly, Graebner adds a unique spin to the tradition academic history book and includes large photos, articles, drawings, and ads from Buffalo that have an almost "scrapbook" feel. It involves the reader to a larger degree because no longer are you just reading about teen hang outs but you see photos of actual teenagers in Buffalo at a friend's house listening to music. It takes history out of the inhuman analysis and reminds us that our subjects lived and experienced life the same way we did.

Despite methodological issues that appear with a study about youth, Graebner moves the literature forward by acknowledging these trappings and using this admission to make a better analysis of youth. However, it is Graebner's approach to the generalization of youth that makes this book so noteworthy. His ideas, although provoking, did not catch on in the study of youth despite the influential nature of his book (it is frequently cited in academic and popular publications about youth and the 1950's until today). I believe it is a book worth revisiting for its theoretical thesis and can be used to inspire more detailed and localized studies of youth in America. For too long, American youth have been categorized into a homogeneous label that ignore the richness of natural diversity and this is doing more harm than good to the study of youth.

A Historian Reads: Sin No More

In a class about vice crime, we were assigned to read our own professor's book. At first this came across as somewhat narcissistic and self serving, until I read it and realized that it was a great book. Sin No More: From Abortion to Stem Cells, Understanding Crime, Law, and Morality in America by Drs. John Dombrink (my wonderful professor) and Daniel Hillyard explores the space where morality and the law intersect. In criminology, there is a distinction made between crimes with victims (murder, assault, burglary etc) and those that are victim-less, otherwise known as vice crimes. Crimes with victims are generally not dispute about their status as a crime. It is hard to argue that murder is something we should allow as a society. Vice crimes, however, are less black and white. They bring up questions about morality, the role of government to enforce morality, and the purpose of the law.

As seen in the subtitle, this book covers topics as diverse as abortion, stem cells, marriage equality, gambling, and others. Both authors take a historical perspective to the topics and divide each chapter by type of vice crime. They then explore the historical development of the vice crime including how they came to be (or in some cases, reappeared), their origins with specific ethnic groups or social classes, the legislation written in response and modern debates surrounding their legality or illegality. In doing so, the authors bring out the nuances and unique debates that each topic creates rather than generalizing patterns of legalization and criminalization.

From Stonewall to the Facebook trend.
Dombrink and Hillyard note that on a whole,
trends are in favor of decriminalization. 

However, there is a greater overarching lesson to be learned through their historical and sociological analysis. Regardless of what vice crime you focus on, there is a national trend towards becoming more tolerant of these behaviors and peeling back the legislation that wastes money towards prosecuting victim-less crimes. Despite, social conservative cries about the decaying morality of the United States, it would appear that we are just becoming more tolerant of these former "immoral" behaviors in a healthy fashion. Just as legalizing heroin in Portugal did not cause the entire tiny nation to become heroin users, and legalizing gay marriage in most of Europe did not result in every getting gay married, so shall the United States pass into a state that worries less about their neighbor's behavior inside their home and focuses on actual physical crimes in which victims are due their justice.

Because I had Dr. Dombrink as a professor, I got the opportunity to talk with him a lengths about his approach to law, crime, and society. Something unique about his approach is that he is very aware of the left right paradigm that exists within a lot of research and views this as a biased way to treat the American public. He acknowledges the variety and hybrid political views that Americans have and uses this to hone his analysis. Rather than see increased tolerance as a rise in liberal thought, he instead sees it as a rise in individualist and libertarian ideas that he views as a common feature of millennials, regardless of the political affiliation. This new (at the time of publication in 2007) approach lends itself to a less political analysis and a more human one. Dombrink and Hillyard see these trends as reflective of humanity rather than of any political or economic development. At the end, the authors are positive and hopeful for the American political scene and trust that as people become less judgmental and less interested in controlling the behavior of others so shall the system slide in their favor.

A Historian Reads: American Nations

Since the publication of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities in 1983, academics across the disciplines have had to reexamine their understandings of the nation state. In today's world, it is natural to think in terms of "the nation" and the national narrative of history. Anderson's seminal work explained the process in which we are socialized to think in terms of the nation and why the nation is a creation of the nineteenth century. Prior to the nation, civilizations existed in terms of empires and kingdoms. The people who lived within these contexts existed as subjects rather than citizens. They have no national identity. Anderson argued that the nation is an imagined community. It allows citizens to believe themselves to be a part of a greater community despite most likely never meeting the majority of this community. In the history of the United States, historians have stuck to a nationalist translation of the country's history. However, Colin Woodard's book, American Nations, goes against this trend and introduces the idea of transnational or regional history into the narrative of the United States.

Woodard divides the national into 11 regions that each contain a different and unique history which explains the modern culture of these regions. He approached the subject by trying to understand the root of today's deep political divides and sees them as a result of these different nations and their varying heritage. These nations are: First Nation, the Left Coast, El Norte, the Far West, Deep South, New Netherlands, Greater Appalachia, Yankeedom, New France, the Midlands, and Tidewater. The book follows history chronologically while also separating chapters by the different nations. An example of a regional history and how he uses it to explain modern political divides is in California. His analysis divides California between two nations: El Norte (Southern California) and the Left Coast (Northern California). The Left Coast is made up of migrants from an eastern nation, Yankeedom, whose residents prized social cooperation, a strong central government, and elitist value. They brought their values and opinions to the little inhabited northern California and successfully established a replica of Yankeedom. However, this created tension between the Protestant Anglo migrants to California and the Catholic Hispanic Californianos who inhabited southern California. These Californianos, who lived in El Norte, were mostly ranchers who prized independence, cultural pride, and quick adaptation. When California was annexed into the United States, the two poles of the states retained their personalities and as time went by would become two very different regions and voting blocks.

From a historical perspective, I find Woodard (a journalist) remarkably groundbreaking. He breaks away from a trend that has plagued the historical field since the days of the U.S revolution and introduced the newer transnational style that better explains historical progression. Transnational history is not anything new to historians, but to the general public it represents a major shift. Woodward does this successfully because of his entertaining, lively, and smart writing. His style of writing is meant for a popular audience, but he does not allow this to prevent him from providing deep analysis and a rich history of each region. Each chapter is filled with details but never does it feel dense or overwhelming, a difficult achievement. Woodard also provides an answer to those skeptics of the humanities and the generally uninterested who repeatedly ask "why is history important? Why does studying this even matter?" He demonstrates that history is a framework to understand our modern world, views, actions, and events. Without understanding historical development and progression, those skeptics will be left misunderstanding and miss-explaining current debates and political shifts. Rarely do things spontaneously occur, there is almost always a progression. Woodard demonstrates that historical understanding is needed more today than ever before.

A Historian Reads: Teenagers, An American History

In the process of doing any historical writing, it is necessary to do what historians call, historiography. What this means is reading what other people have written about the subject we are interested in. This is an important step for historians because it informs us about our subject but also lets us know what has already been discussed and how it has been discussed. Historians generally do not want to write something somebody else has already written about unless they disagree with the previous account. Either way, historians must dedicate their time to understanding the discourse about their research topic. In my own research I have had to do several groups of historiography because my topic touches on a variety of topic. My study lies within their intersections.

One of the books I have read during my historiography research is Teenagers: An American History by historian Grace Palladino. Palladino's study looks at youth in America from the mid-twentieth century onwards. She explores the concept of youth and "teenagers," which are relatively new constructs in our vocabulary. The teenager, as we think of them today, was discovered during the Great Depression as high schools became mandated and culture became divided by age. During World War II Palladino demonstrates that increased freedom and concern with the war allowed teens to develop a culture separate from adults and young children. Both men and women began to develop their own social structures outside of adult supervision and regulation. Mainly due to the power that disposable income gave them, teenagers created their own ideas about what was desirable, fashionable, and necessary. With the war over, a return to "normalcy" desired by most Americans, and the second Red Scare in full boom, those in power reacted to teenagers. Comics, movies, and music became the target of accusations of communism and subversion. To reformers and parents, these popular culture products were responsible for turning their well behaved children into wild and rebellious delinquents.

Teenagers having fun and disapproving adults looking on.

Palladino's book achieves its goal of expressing American history through the perspective of the teenager. It is ambition and covers a rather large span of time. However, her book has one glaring issue. It ignores the experiences of minority teenagers. Outside of a chapter about African American teens in the South, Palladino's story is about white middle class teens living in the mid-west and east coast. This has been one of the prevailing issues in youth culture studies. Until recently, African American, Latino American, and other minority groups have not been explored as a part of youth culture. An earlier book about youth culture, William Graebner's Coming of Age in Buffalo, expressed the need for historians to look at youth culture as a diverse collection of subcultures that are divided by race, religion, and class. Palladino does not take Graebner's statement into consideration and continues the narrow view of youth that is just now beginning to be expanded. However, Palladino's study should not be dismissed. Palladino persuasively discusses the role of white middle class teens in American social history and insures that readers will leave with a better understanding of what teenagers and teen culture mean in the context of the past century. For the purposes of my research, Palladino does contribute to my own understanding of youth culture and how youth culture has been understood by historians until recent years. More importantly, it provides me with a prime example of why my own research is such a necessary contribution to the field.

New Series! A Historian Reads: American Desperado

Following the beginning of our film review series, we thought it appropriate to begin a book review series as well. Historians do a lot of reading (heads up for anyone interested in entering the field), but it also happens to be a passion of ours. We will review books that deal with history but they could come from different fields and include fiction and non fiction.

After reviewing the documentary Cocaine Cowboys I thought it might be interesting to introduce you to one of the books used for the making of that documentary. American Desperado is the autobiography of one of the infamous cocaine cowboys, Jon Roberts. If you read the review of that film you will know that the cocaine cowboys refers to the period of extreme drug gang violence that occurred in South Florida during the 1980's and 1990's. Participants in this violence were called the cocaine cowboys because of the lawless nature that the region had developed.

Jon Roberts was one of these cocaine cowboys. A New York native, Roberts was one of the non-Colombian affiliates of the active cartels in South Florida. He began working as a distributor in New York in the club scene during the early 1970's and found it to be a lucrative occupation. However, he moved to Florida when the drug trade through the Caribbean exploded. Cocaine became a desired drug and the main supplier, Colombian cartels, developed extensive trade networks to get their product to the United States. Jon Robert's experience with the Gambino crime family in New York made him a perfect candidate to begin working with the up and coming Colombian cartels. Roberts claims that Cuban cartels in the area were having difficulty bringing in enough product to meet demands. Colombian cartels, who had been working exclusively in production, moved to expand their empire into manufacturing and distribution. Cuban and Colombian cartels were soon in conflict and Roberts found a niche within the Colombian cartel organization. He soon went to work with another American, Mickey Munday, a pilot who used his expertise in flight and navigation to bring up cocaine undetected. Both Roberts and Munday would eventually come under the radar of the South Florida Drug Task Force organized to deal specifically with the cocaine cowboys. A raid would lead to the arrest of Roberts and the escape of Munday. Under arrest, Roberts would eventually turn criminal informant helping the U.S government bring down many of his former colleagues.

Jon Roberts with co-author Evan Wright

This autobiography is an disturbing look into the late twentieth century drug trade by one of its important figures. Interest in this book has gone up recently since Mark Wahlburg has announced interest in making a film based on the autobiography with Wahlburg starring as Roberts. This news makes me uneasy because Hollywood does not have a good record in making accurate film about history in general, the drug war, and Colombians (that will be its own stand alone post/rant). We shall have to wait and see if this film turns out to be another misinformed glamorization film or maybe something closer to the truth. And the truth is that Roberts lived in a violent world and the nonchalant style of Robert's memoir reflects this. It becomes unsettling to read about the acts he committed or was involved in described in such a matter of fact style. Interestingly, since Roberts' death his co-author, Evan Wright, added an epilogue in which he describes his own uneasiness with Roberts' personality and violent past. Wright describes how he feared Roberts as certain times during the process of helping him write the book. As a reader, I found myself experiencing something similar to Wright. Despite this, I do believe this is an important book to the history of the drug war. It reveals the world from the inside out and demonstrates how the drug trade benefited by the war on drugs and the political climate of the United States. Moreso, Roberts' autobiography allows readers to understand the reality of the drug trade outside of the hyper-hysteria of the press and glamorization of the media that most people are familiar with. As this book shows, reality is often more horrific and sensational than anything a filmmaker than make.