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Gilberto Freyre and Brazilian Self-Perception

MARIA LÚCIA G. PALLARES-BURKE

in Racism and Ethnic Relations in the Portuguese-Speaking World

The idea of Brazil as a ‘racial democracy’ and a mixture of peoples and cultures became a central part of its national identity following the publication of Gilberto Freyre's Casa-grande e senzala in ... More

The idea of Brazil as a ‘racial democracy’ and a mixture of peoples and cultures became a central part of its national identity following the publication of Gilberto Freyre's Casa-grande e senzala in 1933. This chapter argues that the idea of racial democracy cannot be understood without taking into account the dialogue, dating from much earlier than 1933, between Brazilians and North Americans, based (in the former case) on an emphasis on the mixture of black and white, and (in the latter) on the ‘one drop rule’ and the segregation that came with it.Less

“Publishing” the Gospel, Reading the Nahda: Protestant Print Culture in Late Ottoman Syria

Deanna Ferree Womack

in Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria

Chapter 2 turns to the American Mission Press in Beirut, which was a site of American-Syrian collaboration and a resource for Syrian Protestants to participate in the Arab cultural and literary ... More

Chapter 2 turns to the American Mission Press in Beirut, which was a site of American-Syrian collaboration and a resource for Syrian Protestants to participate in the Arab cultural and literary renaissance. Locating the Nahda in Beirut within the context of broader nineteenth-century Ottoman reform movements, the chapter explores the socio-cultural contributions of Protestant men who wrote for the American Mission Press beginning in the 1870s. It demonstrates that these authors - including the nahdawi scholar Ibrahim al-Hurani - engaged in Nahda production not only through Arabic poetry, scientific studies, and other “secular” publications, but also in their writings on Islam and through press debates with Jesuit missionaries, Syrian Catholics, and Greek Orthodox leaders.Less

Race in the Reich: The African American Press on Nazi Germany

Larry A. Greene

in Germans and African Americans: Two Centuries of Exchange

America’s decision to enter World War II further highlighted the contradictions between the nation’s democratic rhetoric and the reality of its segregated society. These contradictions that gave rise ... More

America’s decision to enter World War II further highlighted the contradictions between the nation’s democratic rhetoric and the reality of its segregated society. These contradictions that gave rise to the modern African American civil rights movement led by an African American press. Because of its transition to fascism and anti-Semitism, the positive image that many African Americans held of Germany turned into a decidedly negative one. The racist Nuremberg Laws of the Third Reich were soon compared with the Jim Crow laws of the southern United States, a comparison that began to proliferate throughout the African American press in the 1930s. This chapter examines how the African American press incorporated this analogy into a sustained campaign for civil rights in the mid-1930s and accelerated with the outbreak of World War II into the postwar period. It looks at the “Double V” campaign initiated by the Pittsburgh Courier in February 1942 and joined by African American newspapers all across the country, arguing that this was the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.Less

Disseminating Empire: Representing the Philippine Colony

in Visualizing American Empire: Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines

This chapter elaborates on the connection between the Philippines and American empire by exploring how the American press depicted the Philippines as an Oriental nation devoid of civilization—a site ... More

This chapter elaborates on the connection between the Philippines and American empire by exploring how the American press depicted the Philippines as an Oriental nation devoid of civilization—a site waiting for American prayers as manifest in the pretense of colonization. Through a close reading of popular media sources, it asks how Americans, in the context of their own homes, visually consumed the spectacle of America's new colony. Two New York-based newspapers, William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's the World, and two national magazines, Harper's Weekly and McClure's, each represented the Philippines as an exoticized location with an Oriental nature. The American media, controlled by individuals such as Hearst and Pulitzer, helped sell the war along with countless magazines and newspapers.Less

The Education of Italian Americans in Matters of Color

Peter G. Vellon

in A Great Conspiracy against Our Race: Italian Immigrant Newspapers and the Construction of Whiteness in the Early 20th Century

This chapter investigates how the Italian American press negotiated and digested the American racial system by examining its discussion of Italian and African American issues. In response to American ... More

This chapter investigates how the Italian American press negotiated and digested the American racial system by examining its discussion of Italian and African American issues. In response to American violence against Italian immigrants, especially lynching, mainstream newspapers such as Il Progresso resorted to the experience of African Americans as a frame of reference to understand their own racialization. These newspapers stridently criticized self-appointed standard-bearers of white America who claimed ancestry from Anglo-Saxon or Nordic racial stock for questioning the Italian race while hypocritically oppressing African Americans as a consequence of skin color and African ancestry. In addition, empathetic news stories about issues such as segregation and race riots were ubiquitous within the Italian American press alongside sympathetic commentary.Less

A Literary Class War: The Italian American Radical Press

Marcella Bencivenni

in Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in the United States, 1890-1940

Surveying more than fifty Italian radical newspapers, ranging from anarchist to socialist, communist, and anti-fascist, this chapter provides an overview of the press and a discussion of the main ... More

Surveying more than fifty Italian radical newspapers, ranging from anarchist to socialist, communist, and anti-fascist, this chapter provides an overview of the press and a discussion of the main themes, programs, and debates contained in its pages. L'Anarchico was the first of nearly 200 radical Italian-language newspapers produced in the United States from the late nineteenth century through the World War II period. Italian radical papers followed the layout of traditional newspapers of the early twentieth century, with four to eight pages and a large folio size of weekly, sixteen pages or more with a smaller format of monthly magazines. Art played a significant role in defining radical papers. Graphic logos, revolutionary slogans, and drawings helped to give newspapers an easily recognizable meaning for their working-class readers. Radical papers also covered similar themes and were concerned with similar issues. All, for example, aimed at educating, informing, and emancipating the immigrants.Less

“We Jewish Women Should Be Especially Interested in Our New Citizenship”: American Jewish Women and the Suffrage Movement

Melissa R. Klapper

in Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women's Activism, 1890-1940

This chapter traces Jewish women's suffrage activism from the creation of National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1890 through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and ... More

This chapter traces Jewish women's suffrage activism from the creation of National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1890 through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and its aftermath. Jewish women primarily worked for suffrage as individuals, though intense debate flourished among Jewish women's groups. The American Jewish press also devoted time and space to suffrage, and rabbis aired the issue within the community. Once the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in August 1920, Jewish women moved to apply their new rights to their sense of Jewish communal status as well as American citizenship. Indeed, immediately after winning the vote, the members of the sisterhood of The Temple in Atlanta successfully demanded representation on the synagogue board.Less

The Business of Ameryka-Echo

Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

in The Polish Hearst: Ameryka-Echo and the Public Role of the Immigrant Press

This chapter looks at the expanding business of Paryski Publishing at the time of significant changes in both American and Polish American press and publishing. As Paryski's empire prospered, its ... More

This chapter looks at the expanding business of Paryski Publishing at the time of significant changes in both American and Polish American press and publishing. As Paryski's empire prospered, its owner found himself torn between his idealism and the principles of American capitalism, which he wholeheartedly embraced. When faced with difficult choices, Paryski acted like a business owner: he crushed his sales agents' attempt at establishing a labor union. He also tried to discredit and break the strike of his typesetters, condemned strikes in general, and irrevocably distanced himself from socialism. In the context of World War I, he also spied on the immigrant workers for the institution that was a precursor of the FBI to protect his own newspaper.Less

“No Right to Exist Anywhere on This Earth”: Anarchism in Crisis

Kenyon Zimmer

in Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America

This chapter looks at how anarchist groups throughout the country maintained their functionality, with International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) organizer Anna Sosnovsky noting “a general ... More

This chapter looks at how anarchist groups throughout the country maintained their functionality, with International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) organizer Anna Sosnovsky noting “a general revival amongst the Comrades.” By 1933, one anarchist newspaper counted seventy-five anarchist groups across the country, while a U.S. military intelligence agent reported a keen revival of anarchistic activities on the East Coast. This modest resurgence is reflected in available circulation figures from the era, which shows that the American anarchist press retained approximately three-quarters of its prewar readership. The spread of multiethnic, English-speaking international groups led to the unprecedented growth of the English-language anarchist press, while Italian-language anarchist periodicals maintained a higher combined circulation between 1925 and 1933.Less

Selma in the “Glaring Light of Television”

Aniko Bodroghkozy

in Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement

This chapter examines television news' reporting of the Selma campaign for voting rights that led directly to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Television cameras present on the Edmund ... More

This chapter examines television news' reporting of the Selma campaign for voting rights that led directly to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Television cameras present on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday March 7, 1965, were able to capture the beating, gassing, and brutalizing suffered by voting rights demonstrators as they attempted to march to Montgomery. The uproar generated by that footage generated more support, volunteers, and moral clout for the civil rights movement. This chapter considers how one news program, The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, presented the Selma campaign as an ongoing nightly news story, with particular emphasis on its coverage of the campaign's three martyrs: Jimmie Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo. It also discusses the response of white Selmians in the “glaring light of television” and the commentary in the African American press regarding the television coverage of the campaign.Less

The March on Washington and a Peek into Racial Utopia

Aniko Bodroghkozy

in Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement

This chapter examines how television networks handled the coverage of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 to a national audience of millions. The March on Washington drew a quarter of a ... More

This chapter examines how television networks handled the coverage of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 to a national audience of millions. The March on Washington drew a quarter of a million civil rights activists who converged on the nation's capital to press for “jobs and freedom.” Television cameras and reporters focused on the demonstrators' placards and signs. All three networks broadcast the event live. With the exception of presidential inaugurations and nominating conventions, no single event had ever commanded such extensive television coverage. This chapter first considers how the CBS news team framed and packaged the March on Washington as a news story, and particularly Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech, before discussing various responses to the television news reporting of the march in the African American press. It suggests that the March on Washington functioned as a paean of “black and white together,” as the networks invited viewers to share in a utopian taste of achieved equality.Less

A Passionate Addiction to Lincoln

Nina Silber

in This War Ain't Over: Fighting the Civil War in New Deal America

No historical figure became as prominent in 1930s America as Abraham Lincoln. Once seen mainly as a figure of moderation and reconciliation, Lincoln became a more powerful figure associated with ... More

No historical figure became as prominent in 1930s America as Abraham Lincoln. Once seen mainly as a figure of moderation and reconciliation, Lincoln became a more powerful figure associated with state building and the broadly defined work of emancipation. Under the influence of poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, important parallels were drawn between Lincoln and FDR. Yet, because of Roosevelt’s limited attention to racial oppression, there was a tendency to make Lincoln a more race neutral figure, one who freed white people more than black. At the same time, African Americans, who were increasingly shifting their political interests to the Democratic Party, invested Lincoln with more of a racial justice agenda. Conservatives, for their part, took aim at the way New Dealers and Popular Fronters re-imagined Lincoln, especially on the Federal stage.Less