Category Archives: SHEAR

13 August 2012

What You Missed This Summer at Jacksonian America

This crane would have been helpful more than once this summer.

Looking back, Summer 2012 at Jacksonian America wasn’t very Jacksonian. My summer reading list dictated the topic of many of the posts. If you’re looking for some reading material, here’s a look at the past couple of months.

My summer reading list included several books on fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity. You can find my reviews of the books at the following links:

In addition to reading and reviewing these books, I also picked up a memoir by Lewis Donelson III and a new book on the Snow race riot of 1835.

In early June, I attended The Historical Society conference in Columbia, South Carolina. My paper, entitled “Old Hickory Just Got All Sexypants,” was part of this panel that I summarized. I also attended a great session on digital history.

I reflected on the historians who influenced me the most and what I would have studied if I hadn’t chosen Jacksonian politics and celebrated the ten-year anniversary of completing the Ph.D. and two years of blogging.

For those interested in the process that goes into writing a scholarly book, you might want to look at my posts on editing the manuscript and working with your editor(s).

Summer wouldn’t be any fun without vampires, though. I proposed a mash-up with Andrew Jackson and aliens to take advantage of the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter novel and movie (which is deeper than one might think, it turns out). To top it off, a reader informed me he had already written a screenplay about Jackson and vampires.

I also took down (and put back up) part of a fence, re-shingled part of a shed, and changed an electric ballast without electrocuting myself. Let me tell you, blogging was a lot more fun.

Leave a comment | posted in Andrew Jackson, Evangelical Christianity, Fundamentalist Christianity, SHEAR, The Historical Society

19 March 2012

Update on SHEAR and Social Media

By Mark R. Cheathem

Following last summer’s SHEAR conference, several SHEAR members, including me, recommended that the organization embrace social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. In response, President Drew Cayton and the executive council allowed a working group to draft a proposal recommending steps to be taken.

As I understand it, there will be an opportunity to discuss SHEAR’s future in social media at this July’s SHEAR conference in Baltimore. In the meantime, SHEAR has established Twitter (@SHEARites) and Facebook accounts.

SHEAR 2011: Conclusion and Thoughts on Technology

By Mark R. Cheathem

Harry Watson’s presidential address was held at the Racquet Club. Originally, Watson was supposed to talk about Andrew Jackson, but after a ghostly visitation from Old Hickory, he decided to discuss race and southern antebellum education reform. (Jackson was likely scary enough in person; can you imagine him as an apparition?)

The banquet afterwards was very good. In addition to hobnobbing with the usual suspects, I spent time talking to Herb Ershkowitz and met Eva Shepphard Wolf, someone I knew from serving together on the AHA’s Jameson Prize Committee but had never met in person.

This conference was the third at which I tried blogging during the conference. In the future, I’m not sure if I’ll continue writing detailed summaries of panels that I attend or if live-tweeting is the way to go. I enjoyed meeting SHEAR members with whom I had interacted via the blog or Twitter–the technology added a component of camaraderie to the conference for me.

Along those line, Caleb McDaniel wrote an important and thoughtful post on 21st-century technology and H-SHEAR. It’s worth quoting in part:

I do think that H-Net can do things to help facilitate exchanges among these varied communities, like making easier permalinks for posts or incorporating “share” buttons within the archived discussion log pages online. Even better would be the incorporation of a DISQUS-style trackback system into the logs, so that viewers could see when a post or book review has been tweeted or mentioned on a blog. All of these changes could be made without diehard email subscribers even noticing them, while they would significantly aid those who wish to link to and continue list discussions elsewhere. At the same time, however, I think it’s important to note that the two episodes I’ve mentioned here occurred even without such features, which aren’t strictly necessary in order for H-Net to be plugged into the evolving online ecosystems like Twitter.

I would like to add to Caleb’s analysis by calling on Drew Cayton, this year’s president, and the other members of the SHEAR executive and advisory boards to undertake a technology initiative, including the creation of an official Facebook page, Twitter account, and blog. (Michael D. Hattem suggested on Twitter that SHEAR should also record and post certain panels on the organization’s website.) The time and money needed to create and maintain these sources of information and communication would be minimal, but they would help give those SHEAR members (and others outside of the organization) interested in the newer technology a way to network and disseminate their scholarship.

I agree with Caleb that H-SHEAR has its place and is still important, but I also think that it is incumbent on the organization to embrace and encourage newer modes of communication among its members. It wasn’t that long ago that SHEAR experienced a financial crunch; one way to hedge against poor finances is to attract new members, especially younger scholars who will become members in graduate school and stay loyal throughout their careers. I imagine that the demand for the use of new technology will only increase in the coming years, and SHEAR would be wise to stay with the times, as the AHA and other scholarly organizations have done.

4 comments | posted in SHEAR

18 July 2011

SHEAR 2011: Crafting Gender Identity

By Mark R. Cheathem

Birte Pfleger was unable to attend our panel because of budget cuts in the California’s State University system took away travel funds. (Boo, California!) So, Sue Stanfield (University of Iowa) and I were left on our own. Cathy Kelly from the University of Oklahoma chaired and commented.

Sue Stanfield’s paper centered on household advice, particularly that given by Catherine Beecher. I hope Sue will forgive me for not taking notes during her presentation. I listened periodically, but I was thinking more about how to make my paper cohesive. As I told Cathy when I submitted it a few weeks ago, it wasn’t very good, and I was prepared to take my lumps from her and the audience. (If you didn’t read it previously, I posted it here.)

Cathy’s comments were excellent. She said that Andrew Jackson Hutchings sounded like he was ready for a reality TV show, something along the lines of ”Jersey Shore” meets the Hermitage. She also called Jackson an “antebellum Brangelina” in his determination to collect wards. (As you can probably tell, Cathy’s comments were a hit with the audience.) More seriously, she wondered why I didn’t include females and slavery in my paper, how the three AJs responded to Jackson’s advice, and what benefit Jackson saw in accumulating his wards, many of whom bore his name.

My responses, in order, were that I am addressing Jackson’s advice on relationships with females, slavery, and morality in a presentation at the January 2012 AHA in Chicago; Junior was whiny and manipulative in his letters, while Hutchings said more with his actions than with his words; and Jackson viewed his many wards and his extended kinship network as a way to fill an emotional and psychological void, as well as advance his career. (As an aside, Dan Feller has noted that once he was president, Jackson’s political preferred political appointees tended to be former military cronies and relatives, which adds an additional dynamic.)

Cathy’s comments were great, and the audience added to what became a great conversation about the specific papers and larger issues. I tried to take copious notes on the comments about my paper, but I didn’t catch everyone’s name or every comment. Please don’t be offended if you commented, and I didn’t record or don’t attribute the comment directly to you. The comments on my paper, roughly in order [my responses in brackets]:

Unknown: Jackson valorized patriarchy, which he did not have as a child. [Absolutely correct.]

Unknown: There is a difference between what Jackson told his wards to do and what he himself did in his own life.

Unknown: What does this paper say about regret among antebellum men?

Tim Williams (Univ. of South Carolina): Writing a book that includes letters from a father giving his son advice about (mature content advisory) masturbation. (This became a running joke throughout the rest of the session.) Tim asked about the wards’ advice to their sons. [Donelson repeats verbatim Jackson's advice to him to his own son, Andrew Jackson Donelson, Jr. And people wonder why I need a chart to keep track of the family!]

Brian Luskey (West Virginia University): Sounds like a bunch of whiny, bratty masturbators. (I warned you!)

Cynthia Kierner (George Mason Univ.): Wardship was a quasi-official social institution; comparison with John Randolph and other wardship networks. [I haven't thought of comparing with other southern planters and their wardship networks.]

Lydia Plath (Univ. of Glasgow): How does minimizing or removing southern honor from the discussion affect larger American masculinity? [I don't know.]

Kathryn Tomasek (Wheaton College): What is the historical literature on early 19th-c. adoption? Was Junior an example of a failed adoption? [I didn't find much reference to early 19th-c. adoption in historical literature; most of it focuses on adoption in the Victorian and 20th-c. periods.]

Unknown: Comparison between Jackson and James K. Polk, who also was childless but had siblings.

This session was a perfect example of the audience making the panel work. The questions and comments were lively and insightful and gave me, and I’m sure Sue as well, lots to think about as we go back to our projects. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Leave a comment | posted in Andrew Jackson, SHEAR

16 July 2011

SHEAR 2011: The People and the Constitution

By Mark R. Cheathem

Note: Once again, this is a hurried summary of the panel. Apologies in advance for errors of fact or interpretation.

Rosemarie Zagarri (George Mason University) chaired the Friday afternoon roundtable on the U.S. Constitution. The panelists were Richard Beeman (University of Pennsylvania); Pauline Maier (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); John Kaminski (University of Wisconsin); and Stephanie R. Hurter (Department of State). (A fifth panelist, Trish Loughran, was not able to present.)

Each panelist spent roughly 5-10 minutes identifying historiographical issues or avenues of future research. Beeman, who recently retired, made the connection between the founding era and the modern Tea Party, arguing that understanding the Constitutional Convention delegates and debates undermines the arguments made by modern Tea Party members. He also suggested that the moral judgments of the founders regarding slavery were overemphasized.

Kaminski, also recently retired, talked about his work the documentary editions of the state ratification debates. He mentioned four important issues to keep in mind regarding the Constitution: the fragility of the Union; the acquiescence of the constitutional opponents; the importance of timing in the ratification process; and the immediacy of the Constitution becoming a sacred document.

Maier discussed her book on ratification at length. She argued that the major problem the Confederation government faced was lack of money. She also explained why she dislikes the term “Anti-Federalists,” preferring instead “critics of the Constitution.” “Anti-Federalists” brings to mind political parties and a political dichotomy that didn’t exist.

Hurter identified several areas of future research in the founding period. They included the use of media saturation during the 1780s-1790s; the influence of media on nation building and identity formation; and the acquisition of a global comparative perspective, especially using diplomatic records to see how other countries viewed the process. She also noted the potential for using new technology (e.g., keyword-searchable databases) to examine the historical record.

The panelists then discussed some of the issues that they each had introduced. Beeman emphasized the contingency of the constitutional debate and suggested that the fear of democracy expressed by the founders was more about provincialism. Both Beeman and Maier argued that the founders questioned the “divine origins” of the Constitution.

Audience members asked several important questions. One question concerned the voices of the disenfranchised–especially women and African Americans–and their reaction to the Constitution. Maier and others agreed that they either don’t exist or are minimal because they were not recorded. Saul Cornell, a noted constitutional scholar in his own right, observed that at a time when we have more documents about the era published than ever before and just when the political discourse needs more knowledgeable scholars of the period, the historical profession has turned away from training constitutional scholars. Instead, that ground has been ceded to legal scholars, many of whom have never read the Constitution and have no idea of its historical context. Beeman agreed that the public need is not being met by historians. Kaminski argued that modern judges need to look at the contemporary collective debate about the Constitution, not just the document itself, when rendering judicial decisions pertaining to the Constitution. All of the panelists seemed to agree that “original intent” was much messier than legal scholars and some judicial officials would have us believe.

A final question asked whether there was anything left to be written about the period. All four panelists agreed that there was. Kaminski recommended looking at the indices of the documentary edition volumes to find topics. Hurter suggested looking at old issues from new perspectives. Maier said to start with the primary sources.

This panel was very informative and helpful, especially for someone whose interest in U.S. political history is geared more toward post-1820 politics. I appreciated the panelists’ optimism and advice about future avenues of research.

Leave a comment | posted in SHEAR, U.S. Constitution

15 July 2011

SHEAR 2011: Fugitive Slaves

By Mark R. Cheathem

These posts are written from notes that may be incomplete or that may not contain the nuances that the presenters and commenters conveyed. I’m also trying to finish this post before I dash off to lunch, so caveat emptor, readers.

At one of the 10:30 sessions, moderated by Michael A. Morrison, Jonathan Daniels Wells (Temple University) and John L. Brooke (The Ohio State University) presented two interesting papers on the influence of the 1850 fugitive slave law (FSL) on antebellum politics.

Wells argued that the FSL fundamentally changed political ideology, making the Civil War more likely. For northern whites, it sharpened the mistrust of politicians; for African Americans, it led to fleeing the U.S. to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, as well as a recommitment to abolitionism. Overall, the violence that accompanied enforcement of the FSL made compromise and moderation less possible and forced white northerners to acknowledge that slavery could not be ignored because it didn’t directly affect them.

Brooke argued that Harriet Beecher Stowe and Stephen Foster provided the cultural soundtrack for the discussion of the FSL. By the end of 1851, the quieting public discourse on the FSL was undermined by Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Foster’s music. (Interestingly, while Foster’s songs have been interpreted as racist in modern times, Brooke noted that abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, praised them for providing a sympathetic view of slaves.) Instead of the traditional interpretation of 1852-53 being a calm period leading up to the surprising political explosion of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, Brooke argued that Stowe and Foster’s performative soundtrack bolstered northern nationalism, making the Kansas-Nebraska Act not so surprising an event.

After comments by Elizabeth R Varon (University of Virginia), the audience chimed in. Two comments caught my attention. Marc Egnal saw no reason to change the traditional interpretation focusing on the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the political turning point of the 1850s. (Brooke disagreed.) Frank Towers cautioned against “essentializing” the FSL, by which I think he meant giving it more importance than it deserved in the sequence of events leading to the Civil War.

2 comments | posted in Elizabeth R. Varon, Fugitive slave law, John L. Brooke, Jonathan Daniel Wells, SHEAR

15 July 2011

SHEAR 2011: Off to a Fast Start

By Mark R. Cheathem

I made it to Philadelphia yesterday, but only by a whisker. Lines at Nashville International were packed; in fact, I’ve never seen an airport so busy during a non-holiday period. Thankfully, I made it on my direct flight on time.

A pesky headache and plugged-up ears from the flight kept me from attending the plenary session and reception, but I did meet Nan Morgan and Jon Cryder from Temple. I also ran into Dan Feller on Chestnut St., where we swapped war stories briefly.

After a scintillating breakfast with Jim Broussard, at which we discussed presidential politics and research projects, I stopped by the book exhibit. Nan Morgan and I discussed her research on the connection between nullification and Indian removal. The two of us, along with Jon Crider and Gretchen Adams, also discussed blogging, Twitter, and H-Net.

Then I headed off to my first session on fugitive slaves.

Andrew Jackson’s Advice About Masculinity to His Male Wards

By Mark R. Cheathem

I’m looking forward to presenting at next week’s Society for Historians of the Early Republic (SHEAR) meeting in Philadelphia, a conference, by the way, that does not suffer from many of these problems. I’ll do my best to blog and tweet during the conference, in between attending panels and losing money to Jim Broussard and the Penny Post Crew.

For those interested, here is a .pdf copy of my paper, entitled “Masculinity and Familial Relations in the Early Republic South: A Study of Andrew Jackson’s Advice to His Male Wards.” I’m examining Jackson’s advice to three relatives:

Andrew Jackson Donelson

Andrew Jackson, Jr.

Andrew Jackson Hutchings

Wish me and the audience luck in keeping the four AJs straight.

Some caveats about the paper:

1. Conference presentations are usually limited to 20 minutes, or a paper of approx. 8-10 pages in length, depending on one’s reading speed. Of necessity, then, this paper is an overview. It could have been expanded to incorporate other aspects of Jackson’s relationship with his male wards. (If you’re interested in those other aspects, you’ll have to buy the Jackson biography when it comes out!) Except for the analysis of Lorri Glover’s book, Southern Sons, I also tried to confine historiography to the footnotes.

2. I’ve learned to write my papers as presentations. (Early in my career, I emulated other presenters, who essentially wrote 20-25 pp. papers, then cut it down, sometimes as they were reading to the audience.) I won’t claim to be entirely successful, but I tried to present my arguments and supporting evidence clearly and succinctly. We’ll see how that pans out.

I hope to spin an article out of an expanded version of the paper, so if you have comments on, or criticism of, the paper, please feel free to share, either here or in person at SHEAR.

Leave a comment | posted in Andrew Jackson, Kinship, Masculinity, SHEAR

21 April 2011

Teasing My Research

By Mark R. Cheathem

No, not the kindergarten brand of teasing. I’m excited about presenting some of my Jackson research at this summer’s SHEAR and this fall’s Southern.

At this year’s SHEAR, which meets in Philadelphia, I’ll be presenting a paper entitled, “Masculinity and Familial Relations in the Early Republic South: A Study of Andrew Jackson’s Advice to His Male Wards.” The paper will look at how Jackson’s advice outlined expectations of masculinity for his male wards. I intend to use his correspondence with Andrew J. Donelson, Andrew J. Hutchings, and Andrew Jackson, Jr. (Should I provide a scorecard to help the audience keep these four Andrews straight?)

At the Southern, which meets in Baltimore, I’ll be presenting a paper entitled, “Slavery, Kinship, and Andrew Jackson’s Presidential Campaign of 1828.” This paper will examine the issue of slavery in the 1828 presidential election and the role of kinship networks in attacking and defending Jackson regarding this issue.

These presentations follow the recent publication of my historiographical article on Jackson and slavery, which grew out of last year’s OAH panel on Jackson. I’m looking forward to getting feedback on some of my ideas while I’m finishing up the Jackson biography.

Leave a comment | posted in Andrew Jackson, Election of 1828, Kinship, Masculinity, Organization of American Historians, SHEAR, Slavery, Southern Historical Association

Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics

Category Archives: SHEAR

What You Missed This Summer at Jacksonian America

Update on SHEAR and Social Media

SHEAR 2011: Conclusion and Thoughts on Technology

SHEAR 2011: Crafting Gender Identity

SHEAR 2011: The People and the Constitution

SHEAR 2011: Fugitive Slaves

SHEAR 2011: Off to a Fast Start

Andrew Jackson’s Advice About Masculinity to His Male Wards

Teasing My Research

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