Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert E May

In today's conversation with Robert E. May, Professor Emeritus of History, Purdue University, we will examine the America, Wallingford CT native son, Moses Yale Beach, who came of age in and influenced: The Antebellum Era: From the War of 1812 to the Civil War.To provide our listeners with some context, Moses Yale Beach, was born at the turn of the 19th century in January 1800 and died approximately 3 years after Lincoln was assassinated in 1868. Professor May helps us understand this Antebellum Period of history, we know that our collective understanding continues to be transformed. Many recent works have contributed new insights into the years 1846 to 1848, the middle of Mr. Beach's editorial control of the penny paper, The Sun.There is a lot to unpack, indeed many books have been written. Let's begin briefly with the War of 1812 and America's victory over the British, starting with the economic and political forces of the time which may have influenced the imaginings of a young man seeking independence from an agrarian life.Q1 How would you characterize what some have described as a period of entrepreneurial spirit?Q2Can you comment on the politics of the period (statesmen like Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John Calhoun) and the attempt to find legislative solutions to the divisive issue of slavery.COMMENTYou have been a trend setter in looking at what was happinging-elsewhere to understand America. Q3Why is a global perspective important especially as it relates to America's expansion?Q4Mr. Beach was literally involved with the Mexican War, also known as Mexican-American War. What do you know of his involvement and can you comment on his world view?Q5In addition to being immersed in the peacemaking of the U.S.-Mexican War, Moses Yale Beach played a possibly even more significant role in U.S. attempts to acquire Cuba from Spain. Could you elaborate on this less known facet of Beach's colorful career?"Q6You have written about Jane Cazneau, also known as Jane Storm, the most prolific female journalist on US foreign policy during the antebellum. She was not lacking in self confidence and your work reveals the study of a woman who fearlessly defied the Separate Spheres ideology of the time that sought to keep women framed within the house or home, the domestic.We have encountered an 1846 quote attributed to her that reads, “I can and do control over half of the entire daily circulation [of the New York Sun] and from my position thus hold the balance of opinion on nay man or measure.” This is certainly an intriguing and provocative quote. Firstly, how does the quote strike you and secondly, could you elaborate on her connection to MY Beach?Q7Finally, is it somewhat tragic that despite improvements in news coverage from the founding of the AP onwards, and that important legacy, we seem to be stuck, more than ever, in ecosystems of slanted news coverage (what used to be called post-truth) to the point of unreality?

A guided conversation about Wallingford CT native son, Moses Yale Beach, whose contributions to the world are mostly unsung. Among his contributions is the founding of the Associated Press.With us in conversation are Valerie Komor, Director of Corporate Archives at the Associated Press, and Professors of American History Menahem Blondheim and Robert E. May.For ContextMoses Yale Beach was born in Wallingford CT on Jan 15, 1800, and died in 1868.  A man of many skills and innovations, his most successful venture involved the penny newspaper,  The Sun, from 1838 to 1858. He died approximately three years after Lincoln was assassinated while living in his mansion built by architect Henry Austin.PanelistsProfessor Robert May, formerly of Purdue University and now retired, is a specialist in 19th-century American history and the author of, among others, Manifest Destiny's Underworld,  The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America and Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Public Memory. His works contribute renewed understanding of and interventions to knowledge about 19th-century American Western expansion. In so doing, Professor May's work alters and enhances our understanding of Manifest Destiny, Underground Railroads and other important focus topics affixed to the Antebellum and beyond, and Professor May's recent writing continues to explore the necessity of intervention in nationwide education curriculums.Professor Menahem Blondheim is a faculty member in the Dept. of Communication and Journalism and the Dept. of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research explores the role of communication in American and in Jewish history, as well as the history of media. A former entrepreneur and executive in the high-tech industry in the dawn of high-speed digital communications, he also studies the development, performance, and meaning of communication technologies, new and old. He has received his BA degree from the Hebrew University, MA and PhD degrees from Harvard University, and has won fellowships from the NEH, Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, and the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Blondheim's extensive work in communication and communication histories is, for our purposes, fascinatingly presented in his book, News Over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844—1897.Director Valerie Komor is the founding Director of the Associated Press Corporate Archives. Before joining AP in 2003, she held positions at the Oberlin College Archives, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art and the New-York Historical Society. She holds an M.A. in Medieval Studies from Yale University and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2003, AP Vice President and Director of Corporate Communications, Kelly Tunney, asked Director Komor to establish AP's first corporate archives.  According to Director Komor, ‘this offer was a great challenge, as it involved creating a new department and promoting a new idea within the company: the systematic documentation of AP itself.'Facilitator & Contributor: Riaan Oppelt, an English and Cultural Studies scholar at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, interested in  the absorbing global histories of media and communication with attention to our contemporary media cycles and usages.Our three guests and their work, have ties to the subject of our discussion today, namely Moses Yale Beach —a name largely still unrecognized in the public imaginary

How did enslaved African Americans in the Old South really experience Christmas? Did Christmastime provide slaves with a lengthy and jubilant respite from labor and the whip, as is generally assumed, or is the story far more complex and troubling? In this provocative, revisionist, and sometimes chilling account, Robert E. May chides the conventional wisdom for simplifying black perspectives, uncritically accepting southern white literary tropes about the holiday, and overlooking evidence not only that countless southern whites passed Christmases fearful that their slaves would revolt but also that slavery's most punitive features persisted at holiday time.In Yuletide in Dixie, May uncovers a dark reality that not only alters our understanding of that history but also sheds new light on the breakdown of slavery in the Civil War and how false assumptions about slave Christmases afterward became harnessed to myths undergirding white supremacy in the United States. By exposing the underside of slave Christmases, May helps us better understand the problematic stereotypes of modern southern historical tourism and why disputes over Confederate memory retain such staying power today. A major reinterpretation of human bondage, Yuletide in Dixie challenges disturbing myths embedded deeply in our culture.HOST:  Rob MellonFEATURED BREW:  Christmas Ale, Great Lakes Brewing Company, Cleveland, OhioBOOK:  Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memoryhttps://www.amazon.com/Yuletide-Dixie-Slavery-Christmas-Southern/dp/0813945100/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1638405838&sr=8-1MUSIC:  Bones Forkhttps://bonesfork.com/es Fork

Robert E. May, author of "Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory"

Robert E. May, author of "Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory"

Robert E. May, author of "Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory"

Robert E. May, author of "Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory"

It's the holiday season, which means it is time for family, fun, gift-giving, and more. However, in the darker portions of America's history, it wasn't the case that everyone got to celebrate the same way. Yuletide in Dixie by former Purdue Professor Robert E. May looks at how enslaved African Americans in the Old South celebrated Christmas. While many slave owners at the time claimed the holidays to be a time of rest for those enslaved, the reality may be more troubling. West Lafayette Public Library Director Nick Schenkel has the review.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at how in the decades before the Civil War, proslavery southerners dominated US foreign policy and promoted a vision of an ever expanding empire of slavery, both within the US but also throughout the western hemisphere. I’ll speak with historian Matthew Karp about his new book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy. Let’s start with some key background to this period. Between 1820 and 1860, the US was an emerging industrial power with the rise of factories, railroads, and large cities. But in those same years, the US enjoyed the status of the world’s most prominent slave holding society. Between 1820 and 1860, the population of enslaved people grew from 1.5 million to 4 million. Cotton production soared from 400,000 bales in 1820 to 4,000,000 bales in 1860. As southerners liked to say, Cotton was King. But while slavery grew more prominent and profitable, it also grew more controversial. The abolitionist movement grew more vocal in its condemnation of slavery. As it did so, it helped spark controversy after controversy in the 1830s through the 1840s and 1850s – controversies that often dominated national politics. Most of us remember some of the key ones: the Gag Rule, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, and the Dred Scott decision. Throughout these controversies over the future of slavery, proslavery southerners used their political influence to defend slavery and demand the right to extend it throughout the US. But as Matthew Karp makes clear in his book, these proslavery southerners did not confine to their vision of slavery’s future to the United States. They developed in these decades before the Civil War a bold and enthusiastic vision of slavery’s growth and expansion elsewhere in the world. And to make this vision a reality, proslavery southerners pushed for US territorial expansion. Hence, the war with Mexico in 1846 that allowed the US to seize what is now much of the western United States. Equally important, they also exerted their political power to use US foreign policy and military power to protect other slaveholding societies like Brazil, Cuba, and in the years before it was annexed by the US, the independent slaveholding republic of Texas. One of their top priorities was to thwart efforts by Great Britain to end the practice of slavery. For centuries, Great Britain was one of the world’s foremost participants in slavery and the international slave trade. But in the early 1830s, Great Britain abolished slavery in its empire and made global abolition a top foreign policy concern. This move infuriated proslavery southerners and made them suspect British plots at every turn - plots they were prepared to use US power to foil. So while proslavery southerners defended slavery and pushed for expansion within the United States, they also used American power to defend slavery in places far beyond US borders, and to push for its global expansion. Among the many things discussed in this episode:  How proslavery southerners shaped US foreign policy to protect slaveholding societies like Brazil and Cuba and to promote the global expansion of slavery. Why US proslavery policy versus British antislavery efforts resembled a 19th century Cold War. Why proslavery southerners feared Great Britain would push Texas to abolish slavery. How proslavery southerners were sectionalists in domestic policy, but nationalists in foreign affairs. How proslavery southerners rejected abolitionist claims that slavery was a relic of barbarism, arguing that history was on their side. More about Matthew Karp - website  Recommended reading:  Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy (2017). Drew Gilpin Faust, The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830-1860 (1982) Paul Finkelman, Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South: A Brief History with Documents (2003) Michel Gobat, Empire by Invitation: William Walker and Manifest Destiny in Central America (2018) Robert E. May, The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854-1861 (1973) Robert E. May, Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America (2013). Related ITPL Podcast Episodes: Manisha Sinha talks about her book, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition http://inthepastlane.com/podcast-episode-004-the-abolitionist-movement-more/ Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive) Lee Rosevere, “Going Home” (Free Music Archive) Blue Dot Sessions, “Sage the Hunter” (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions Photographer: John Buckingham Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © In The Past Lane, 2018