0:03

You're listening to a Poglomerate

0:05

Original. Please

0:11

note that today's episode includes

0:13

sexual references. The

0:22

new culture war raging across America

0:24

is over books. According to the New

0:27

York Times, the pace at which

0:29

groups of parents and officials and lawmakers

0:31

are challenging books in school libraries has

0:34

reached a speed that many haven't

0:36

seen in decades. ...more than 230 book

0:38

challenges nationwide. Parents and school officials banning books

0:41

at an unprecedented rate. ...people out there that

0:43

would like to see those books before we

0:45

burn them. According

0:48

to PEN America, bans are up 33%

0:50

across the country. Statewide

0:52

laws have been passed to pull what's on the shelves

0:55

in public libraries and public schools. Jobs

0:58

have been lost. Educators have

1:00

been threatened. The graduate students that I

1:02

work with who are teaching, they tell

1:04

me stories of their day-to-day work life these

1:07

days that are different than anything I experienced. This

1:11

is Adam Lotz, a historian and

1:13

college professor. But he's also taught

1:15

in public schools, and he knows the ins

1:17

and outs of the issues those teachers

1:19

face. It's the same

1:22

tensions, but it's like all cranked up

1:24

to 11. The tensions have always

1:26

been there about, well, gosh, you know, if I teach

1:28

this book and it has this sex part in it, is

1:31

some parent gonna get mad about that? Like, that's always

1:33

been there. I

1:35

think these days, though, it's kind

1:37

of like the difference

1:39

between going to a family dinner, say, or going

1:42

to the big Thanksgiving dinner. Every

1:44

year, you know of all these same tensions in the family.

1:47

Those tensions have always been there. I

1:50

think the moment that we're in right now, though, is

1:53

that moment at the sort of

1:55

middle end of the dinner, when

1:57

everyone's had too much to drink, and so...

2:00

somebody said the thing out loud in

2:02

accusing tones, and maybe even threw a

2:04

glass on the ground, you know, it's

2:06

gotten scary. And everybody knew the tension

2:08

going in. But right now we're all

2:11

just kind of staring at each other,

2:13

fingers crossed, hoping that the responsible adults

2:15

in the room will find a way

2:17

to work this out peacefully. But honestly,

2:20

not sure that they will because some

2:22

years, it doesn't end that

2:24

way. Some years it ends with family brawls.

2:26

And so I think that's the situation right

2:28

now. It's always tense. For

2:30

100 years, it's been tense. But right

2:33

now it's beyond tense. It's

2:35

a scary time. Tensions are high

2:37

and physical violence doesn't seem out

2:40

of the question. Florida had to cover up

2:42

their bookshelves for fear of getting sanctioned or

2:44

fired over the books that were in circulation.

2:46

Tonight from both sides after Governor Pritzker

2:48

made Illinois the first state in America

2:51

to essentially ban book bans. The media

2:53

is running with a story about a

2:55

Florida school banning a poem. But as

2:57

it turns out, it's not banned at all. The

2:59

poem is titled The Hilly Last

3:01

Week. We were meeting in Dearborn

3:03

with six books at the center

3:05

of the conflict for have LGBTQ

3:07

themes. Hearing

3:10

the headlines has made me feel like everything

3:13

is coming to a head, like

3:15

civility and discourse are a thing of

3:17

the past. It can feel

3:19

like things are worse than ever. Which

3:22

led me to ask, is

3:24

this true? Has

3:26

America faced moments like this before?

3:35

Hey, I've got a female in the

3:37

grass. There is blood all over the

3:39

grass, okay? We may have a serial

3:41

killer on our hands. Welcome

3:44

back to Gone South. I'm Jed Lipinski,

3:46

and this is season three, The Sign

3:49

Cutter. I just got this feeling he

3:51

was the one. He was the one

3:53

that what? That had been

3:55

murdering. Binge the entire season

3:58

of Gone South, an Odyssey original poem.

4:00

podcast, now only on the free Odyssey

4:02

app, or listen weekly wherever you get

4:04

your podcasts. Hey

4:07

everyone! I hope you're enjoying this

4:09

new season of Missing Pages. We've

4:11

been hard at work to bring this to you all and

4:13

wanted to let you know that there's a way you can

4:16

help support the show. You

4:18

can get this season and all

4:20

previous Missing Pages episodes ad-free by

4:22

heading to the Missing Pages show

4:24

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4:27

It's just $2.99 a month and it

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4:36

Don't worry, the show will be available

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to everyone for free always. But if

4:40

you'd like a version without distractions, head

4:42

over to the Missing Pages show

4:44

page on Apple Podcasts and begin

4:46

your free trial. Thanks

4:48

again for considering and hope you enjoy

4:51

this season of Missing

4:53

Pages. Welcome

4:59

back to Missing Pages. I'm your

5:01

host, writer and literary critic Beth Ann

5:03

Patrick. This is the podcast

5:05

where we examine some of the

5:08

most surprising, industry-shaking controversies in the

5:10

literary world and try to make sense of

5:12

them. This is the first episode

5:14

in a series covering recent bans and

5:16

violence that we've seen in the literary

5:18

world. Today is part one

5:20

of a two-parter on book bans. Next

5:23

week, we're going to talk to the

5:25

people who have been directly affected. But

5:27

today, we're going to put the practice

5:30

of book banning into historical context. Chapter

5:37

one. We've been here before. My

5:41

name is Gillian Fragg. I'm a historian

5:43

of religion and sexuality, and I am

5:45

the co-host of the Sexing History podcast.

5:48

Why are we talking to a professor

5:51

whose expertise is in religion and sexuality

5:53

on an episode about book bans? I'm

5:55

sure, to the surprise of no one,

5:57

the two are inextricably related. When

6:00

we talk about book bands now, we

6:02

are most frequently talking about public schools

6:04

and public libraries, taxpayer-funded

6:07

institutions. But America

6:09

has a long history of book banning

6:11

that informs the conversation today. So

6:14

before we move on to school bands,

6:17

we are speaking with historian Gillian Frank

6:19

about the grandfather of bandings.

6:24

Alright, so Anthony Comstock was

6:27

the former postmaster general of the

6:29

United States. He was a devoutly

6:31

religious Protestant. And if you

6:33

look at the pictures of him, he was

6:35

a man with like this giant sort of

6:38

mutton chop beard. He was a fierce

6:40

in public about his moral convictions.

6:42

He was outspoken in his

6:45

denunciation of all sorts of vices. He was

6:47

what we would call right now, we would

6:50

say generously deeply devout. Religious would accuse him

6:52

of being a moral fanatic.

6:54

He was obsessed with

6:56

those who disagreed with him. In

6:59

the late 19th century, Comstock sought

7:02

power. And while he had

7:04

his detractors, he had fans.

7:06

He was good at networking. He was

7:08

part of a larger set of networks

7:10

of folks who were involved in various

7:12

forms of purity campaigns. America

7:16

was changing. It was industrializing.

7:19

States were turning up at the shores and moving into

7:21

the cities. And when

7:23

society is changing, traditional values feel

7:25

threatened, even back in the

7:27

19th century, maybe even especially in the

7:29

19th century, you know, those Victorians. And

7:32

he was part of a larger network of

7:34

people who were concerned about the

7:37

morality of the populace and believed that

7:39

it was the role, not just of

7:42

churches, but of the state to

7:44

make sure that the population had

7:47

temptations removed from it. He

7:49

called obscenities traps for the

7:51

young. The idea was

7:53

that young people were blank slate. They

7:55

were profoundly impressionable that they could

7:58

be easily corrupted. exposed

8:01

to hold out images,

8:03

to sexualized representations, to

8:06

mass culture and books

8:09

and notions that might somehow indoctrinate them,

8:11

they would be forever turned

8:13

deviant and therefore these, what he called

8:16

traps for the young, must be removed

8:18

from the streets, from

8:20

plain sight, collected

8:22

and outright banned. In

8:27

the words of the great American classic,

8:30

Think of the children. Won't somebody

8:32

please think of the children? But

8:35

why was Comstock so obsessed with

8:37

the corruption of children? Why

8:40

was he so sure Americans were

8:42

being ruined by moral decay?

8:45

He was a compulsive masturbator, this appeared

8:47

repeatedly in his diaries. When we talk

8:49

about masturbation, we have to understand that

8:51

in that particular era, it was

8:53

fraught with a different set of meanings. In

8:56

the 19th century, it was quite literally associated

8:58

not only with sin, it's called the deadly

9:00

vice, it was seen as a form of

9:02

moral decay and might actually, they believe, cause

9:05

physical harm. People believe that

9:07

diseases associated with masturbating could

9:09

decompose the human body. Comstock

9:12

was a generation that literally believed

9:14

that masturbation could kill, if not your

9:16

soul, than your body. Say

9:18

what you want about the impact of

9:20

the laws named after Comstock, but he

9:23

was genuinely worried about saving the lives

9:25

of the masses. He knew

9:27

his weaknesses and was worried about

9:29

everyone else succumbing. He

9:32

was incapable of self-governance and therefore

9:34

the surest way to assure moral

9:37

purity was to remove the

9:39

objects of temptation. In

9:41

1873 and 1909, laws were passed to remove such temptations. The

9:47

Comstock laws, which are named after

9:49

him, basically were both

9:52

federal and existed on the state

9:54

level and they were

9:56

all encompassing. These laws attempted

9:58

to regulate what could be

10:00

represented in print visually

10:03

and also to make

10:05

criminal the advertisement of

10:07

and dissemination of devices

10:10

that would interrupt pregnancies, whether

10:12

that was a contraceptive, or

10:15

to enable abortion. So it was

10:17

fairly wide-ranging. Think

10:19

about what is included in

10:21

all temptations. That's everything from

10:24

education on contraception to anything

10:26

that might tantalize a reader.

10:28

How the heck do you enforce that?

10:31

Through the post office. From

10:33

1873 to 1907, Comstock was a special agent of the US Postal Service,

10:40

which may seem like an odd choice, but

10:42

think about what power that gives him.

10:45

What he did was he systematized it. And

10:48

that systematization happened through

10:51

the province of the post office. What it basically

10:53

did was it did it on a federal level

10:55

and made use in the US post office as

10:58

a means to distribute these materials a

11:00

crime. The post office

11:02

could and would investigate and charge

11:05

people with trying to distribute all

11:07

the things Comstock worried would corrupt

11:09

the nation. Comstock personally arrested

11:11

a feminist author who argued women

11:13

should have rights over their own

11:15

bodies. And he arrested someone

11:17

who received the book in the mail. Remember,

11:20

this is almost a century and a half

11:22

ago. All of the items

11:24

that concerned Comstock would need to be

11:26

printed on paper. Aside from

11:29

going door to door, the only

11:31

way to distribute this kind of

11:33

printed information, whether it was about

11:35

contraception or something else the postmaster general

11:37

deemed improper, was to go through

11:40

the post office. What

11:42

we saw was quite literally a

11:44

regime that was trying to create

11:46

an information show called. Talk

11:48

about big government infringing upon the

11:50

lives of its citizens. But

11:53

as the years went by, paying for the

11:55

post office to inspect pieces of mail at

11:57

such a level went out of vogue. But

12:00

the laws state on the books, and

12:03

what's offensive adapts with the time.

12:05

The goal is to give the

12:07

state, to give regulators, to give

12:10

those who are on the side

12:12

of controlling sexual expression, controlling reproductive

12:14

freedom, a multi-tool. The power

12:16

of it is not in the precision, it's

12:18

the part of it is in the making,

12:20

right? Increasingly as you see

12:22

the rise of gay and lesbian communities, really

12:25

starting in the 19th century is to

12:27

read the rise of cities, gay magazines,

12:29

gay film. The Comstock

12:31

laws were used to stop the spread of

12:34

these materials, even when they

12:36

weren't sexual or graphic. Just

12:38

being gay positive was enough to

12:41

be obscene. They

12:43

weren't initially planned to target gay

12:45

people, right? The

12:48

sort of notion that there was sort of

12:50

a homosexual community, as they would have called

12:52

it in the day, or a lesbian community,

12:54

that was an alien thing to Comstock. And

12:57

so what we see is this sort

12:59

of expansive capacity to enforce sexual and

13:01

social norms as they're defined and as

13:03

they change over time. It

13:05

establishes a governing order for

13:07

sexuality. This wide

13:09

brush, it banned all sorts

13:11

of materials from magazines to

13:14

literature. For instance, D.H.

13:16

Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and

13:18

James Joyce's Ulysses. Whatever

13:21

caught the eye of government workers

13:23

or Christian activists or local police

13:26

could and would be brought up

13:28

on obscenity charges. The

13:30

impacts of these laws have affected

13:32

some of the great works of

13:34

American literature. And if

13:37

we're thinking in the 1950s, we can look at

13:39

Allen Ginsberg and the Howell trial, which was brought

13:41

up on obscenity charges. And some

13:43

of the reasons among them were, in fact,

13:45

it had explicit words, but this was how

13:47

in other poems was explicitly pro-gay. Or

13:50

purgatoryed their torsos night after

13:53

night with dreams, with drugs,

13:55

with waking nightmares, alcohol and

13:58

cock and endless bull. So

14:01

the logic of how it was obscene,

14:03

you know, it was offensive at

14:05

the time by virtue of the fact

14:07

that it was unabashedly and affirmatively, you

14:10

know, queer, affirmed communism, didn't disavow it

14:12

at the height of the Red Scare and the

14:14

Lavender Manist of the 50s. This

14:16

was a book that was like proudly out. In

14:19

1957, officials seized the book and

14:21

released a statement saying you

14:24

wouldn't want your children to come across it.

14:27

Months later, a bookstore manager sold a

14:29

copy to an undercover cop and was

14:31

arrested and jailed. A

14:33

trial ensued. It captured the

14:35

attention of the press and literati. In

14:38

the end, a judge ruled that the poem held redeeming

14:41

social importance. This

14:43

was a turning point, which led

14:45

to books like Lady Chatterley's Lover

14:47

to be made available after a

14:49

nearly 30 year ban and

14:51

Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. As

14:54

the decades go by, obscenity charges on

14:57

a national level have tended to fail.

15:00

Famously, attempts at banning offensive

15:02

music only led to

15:04

the parental advisory stickers being put

15:06

on CDs, which in

15:08

my experience as a parent was basically

15:10

a flag for my kids to want

15:12

the CD more. Anyways,

15:14

now the law states a work

15:16

has to be utterly without serious value

15:19

in order for something to be banned,

15:22

which is certainly a higher bar but

15:24

can still lead to expensive and high

15:26

stress situations for small business owners or

15:29

school libraries that Kerry Work's

15:31

activists find offensive. So

15:34

it's a fight that continues. And

15:36

simultaneously, there's another battle that goes

15:38

on and on. What

15:40

should be taught in public education?

15:43

What books should be stocked in public

15:45

in school libraries? As we

15:47

know, this is where the battle really

15:49

lies today. Has this fight

15:51

ever been as intense as it is now?

15:54

That's after the break. In

15:59

need of a good read, or just want to

16:01

keep up with the books everyone's talking about,

16:03

NPR's Book of the Day podcast gives

16:05

you today's very best writing in a pocket-sized

16:08

show. Whether you're looking to engage with the

16:10

big questions of our times or temporarily escape

16:12

from them, we've got an author who'll speak

16:14

to you. Catch today's great books in 15

16:17

minutes or less on the Book of the

16:19

Day podcast only from NPR. Beth

16:21

Ann here. Do you ever wish you

16:23

could peek into the minds of acclaimed writers? I

16:26

know I do. Then I have the

16:28

perfect podcast recommendation for you, The

16:30

Writer Files. Each week,

16:33

host Kelton Reed pulls back the curtain on

16:35

the mystique of the writing life by

16:37

studying the habits and brains of the biggest

16:39

and brightest authors of our time, including

16:42

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz

16:45

and Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak

16:47

Gurna. Not to mention,

16:50

you can learn even more about missing

16:52

pages and about my career by checking

16:54

out my episode with Kelton from last

16:56

summer, August 2022, on The Writer Files

16:58

feed. No

17:01

spoilers for me, but I certainly think it's

17:03

worth a listen. Don't miss a

17:06

page. Follow The Writer Files on

17:08

Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you

17:10

get your podcasts. Hi

17:14

there, it's Beth Ann. Whether you're a

17:16

loyal or new listener of missing pages,

17:18

I have a feeling that you probably

17:21

love digging into the history of your

17:23

favorite words, understanding complex grammar rules, or

17:25

learning about the craft of writing. If

17:27

that sounds like you, then you

17:29

should check out the podcast Grammar

17:31

Girl. As a five-time recipient of

17:33

Best Education Podcast at the Podcast

17:36

Awards, Grammar Girl is your pocket

17:38

guide to understanding grammar. For over

17:40

15 years, host and

17:42

podcasting Hall of Fame inductee,

17:44

Ming-Nong Fogarty, has been helping

17:47

listeners remember tricky grammar

17:49

rules, like less versus

17:51

fewer, and joy

17:53

in weird language history, like

17:55

the surprising histories behind the

17:57

common words amok and bimbo.

18:00

My favorite part? Her episodes

18:02

are all short and sweet, so you can

18:05

fit them into your busy schedule. So

18:07

go ahead, listen to Grammar

18:09

Girl wherever you get your podcasts, and

18:12

tell them I say you. Chapter

18:15

2, Losing Touch

18:17

with Nuance My

18:19

name is Adam Lotts. I'm a professor

18:21

of education and history at Binghamton University,

18:23

State University of New York, and Upstate

18:25

New York. Professor Lotts is

18:28

the man we heard up top

18:30

whose Thanksgiving dinner sometimes results in

18:32

brawls. Suffice to say,

18:34

Lotts isn't the cliche, stuffy historian

18:36

type. And one of the

18:38

professors said, well, you know, if you're thinking

18:40

about teaching high school or you're thinking about, you know, doing

18:42

a PhD, you should teach

18:45

high school or middle school if you like

18:47

history and you like fart jokes. And

18:49

I was like, yeah, that's me. Lotts

18:52

has been working at the University of

18:54

Binghamton for nearly two decades. His research

18:56

has focused on the history of book

18:58

bands, but he still makes time for

19:00

his other passions. But I still

19:03

get to work in high school and middle school

19:05

classrooms, and I get to hear the

19:07

fart jokes still. It's just the greatest

19:09

job. Clearly, Lotts loves teaching,

19:11

even though he had to deal

19:13

with upset parents over what's okay

19:16

and not okay to teach middle

19:18

schoolers and high schoolers. Lots

19:20

of groups on both the right and the

19:22

left have been book banners for, gosh,

19:25

50 years now. Books like Huck Finn

19:27

have come under pressure from

19:29

the left because it includes

19:32

this horrible racial language about

19:34

black people, indigenous people. And

19:36

so from the left, groups have said, hey, our

19:38

kids shouldn't be exposed to that. So sometimes you

19:40

hear this, you know, like both sides kind of

19:42

approach. Depending on your perspective,

19:44

what is and isn't appropriate to

19:46

teach a child will change. But according

19:49

to Lotts, for nearly 100 years,

19:51

one ideology has been pushing the issue,

19:54

setting us on a course we keep

19:56

perpetuating. That

20:00

is sort of the fault line in US history. When

20:03

it comes to school culture wars, the

20:05

ways that Americans are fighting right now,

20:07

the sides, those sides were defined in

20:09

the 1920s. Who

20:11

started it exactly? Well, in

20:13

the 1920s, this is one that gets

20:16

people very nervous, I think, justifiable. Americans

20:18

don't like to talk about this group. But in

20:21

the 1920s, there was a clear letter of

20:23

this kind of bookbanging, this kind we're still

20:25

seeing today. And that group was

20:27

the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku

20:29

Klux Klan is alive and

20:31

well in America today. Today,

20:34

we imagine a terrorist group that society

20:37

at large has rejected. But back

20:39

in the roaring 20s, that wasn't the case.

20:42

It wasn't just a Southern thing. It

20:45

was a huge thing. The Ku Klux Klan in

20:47

the 20s ran the state of

20:49

Indiana. They ran the state of Oregon.

20:52

Right here in upstate New York, they

20:54

held these huge ceremonies on Lookout Hill,

20:56

where I am right now, where

20:59

they naturalized citizens. They were violent

21:02

and they were racist, but they weren't

21:04

the same. Their biggest parade in Washington,

21:06

D.C., they didn't wear their hoods. They

21:08

were proud to be members of this

21:10

group, back then. And they were ferocious

21:12

book bedders and book controllers. The

21:15

Klan was prominent across America. Their

21:18

reach even extended into the classroom.

21:21

So in the 1920s, and we could

21:23

do this in the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, you

21:25

can pick a decade. The name

21:27

that they called themselves were the Women

21:29

of the Ku Klux Klan. They would

21:31

conduct whispering campaigns in local communities where

21:33

they would talk about what any local

21:35

teacher was teaching. And they

21:37

reserved to themselves the right physically to

21:40

go into the school, inspect the books,

21:42

and to accuse teachers of teaching ideas

21:45

that weren't up to their idea of

21:47

what made traditional American

21:49

vows, which again, it's the Klan.

21:51

So their idea of traditional American

21:54

values was very strangled and stunted.

22:00

the Klan took issue with. There

22:02

was a famous American history textbook

22:04

written by a nationally known scholar,

22:06

David Saville Muzzy, that the Klan

22:08

wanted to replace. So

22:10

they wrote their own textbook. The

22:13

Klan textbook from the 1920s, it

22:15

said that slavery, the big problem with slavery,

22:18

was that it brought a bunch of

22:20

black people to America and imposed a burden

22:22

on white people. I say

22:24

that again. The Klan version from 1920 said that

22:26

insisted every

22:28

kid in America should understand race. Every

22:30

kid in America should understand the

22:33

terrible nature of slavery. And that

22:35

the worst thing about slavery was

22:37

that poor white people were

22:40

forced to dish out welfare

22:42

for the black people who had come

22:44

to this country by slavery. And

22:47

when people read this at the

22:49

time, they realized just how hateful

22:51

the Klan was, and they recycled

22:53

all of the Klan's textbooks and

22:55

used it as mulch to make

22:57

non-segregated community gardens. I'm

22:59

kidding, sadly. The racism

23:01

against black people wasn't

23:04

what upset most people. So

23:06

you take people that Catholic Irish

23:09

immigrants, we're just, I mean, they

23:11

wouldn't say this, but the implication

23:13

was anti-black and anti-indigenous racism sort

23:15

of defines white America at the

23:17

time. But it was a struggle

23:19

for groups like Catholic, especially Catholic Irish,

23:21

but also Catholic Germans, Catholic Polish, to

23:24

be included in this sort of white

23:27

American history. The

23:29

Klan textbook was a failure, fortunately.

23:33

So on a grassroots level, there was

23:35

a fight over what we should teach

23:37

kids, which is similar to our current moment.

23:40

But one thing we are

23:42

seeing now is mayors, governors,

23:44

presidential candidates campaigning and focusing

23:47

on what's taught in schools. I

23:49

was curious if prominent politicians were

23:51

interested in book banning in schools

23:53

all those decades ago. So in the 1930s,

23:56

you got a guy that doesn't get remembered

23:58

a lot except by historians. But in

24:01

the 1920s and 30s, he's very famous because

24:03

he's trying to be very famous. His

24:05

name is Thomas L. Blanton. He's

24:07

a congressman from the great state of Texas. And

24:10

in 1935, he thinks

24:13

he's riding this wave of school

24:15

paranoia, you know, this sort of

24:17

end of the family dinner anxiety that happens, you

24:19

know, he thinks he's going to get accolade.

24:24

Back then, the U.S. Congress controls

24:26

Washington, D.C. public schools. And

24:29

Blanton snuck in what he called the

24:31

little red rider. Blanton

24:34

passed along that

24:36

D.C. teachers could

24:38

not talk about communism,

24:41

even outside of work. So

24:44

inside school, outside of school, if

24:47

you were a teacher in D.C., you weren't

24:49

allowed to talk about communism, and you had

24:51

to come pick up your paycheck every two

24:53

weeks and swear an oath that you had

24:55

not done so. And this was

24:57

the law that U.S. Congress passed this

24:59

law. So teachers in the

25:01

1930s said, wait, like, how

25:03

can I teach kids anything if

25:05

I can't talk about communism? And again,

25:08

this is 1935 when there was communism. So

25:11

all the way back in

25:13

the 1930s, you had opportunistic

25:15

politicians trying to rile people

25:17

up by turning public education

25:20

into a fight. And Lotz told

25:22

me you also had the media playing

25:24

the same songs as today. Obviously,

25:27

there's no Internet in 1940, but

25:29

there is Forbes magazine. And the

25:31

man who founded Forbes magazine, Bertie

25:33

Forbes, he was telling people, take

25:35

over your local school boards, because

25:37

these local school boards are sneaking

25:39

in all this anti-American stuff. And

25:42

so Forbes magazine was a sort of

25:44

influencer of the day. Forbes

25:47

was particularly focused on a history

25:49

textbook whose main author was

25:52

Harold Rugg and was referred to

25:54

as the Ruggs textbook. They

25:56

taught that the U.S. was not

25:59

by definition. recognition, the only good country

26:01

on the planet. They taught kids that

26:03

the US had a history of racial

26:05

strife, of class strife. They

26:07

even tried to turn classrooms into

26:09

a more democratic structure where teachers

26:11

wouldn't be the only authority. And

26:14

in the end of the 1930s,

26:16

literally while Nazis are burning

26:18

books in Europe, these books

26:20

become accused of being subversive,

26:23

anti-American, anti-white,

26:25

anti-Christian, and they are yanked

26:27

from millions of sold copies

26:30

to an unmeasurable number. They

26:32

just couldn't sell them. And

26:35

in some places, Marshield, Wisconsin, Binghamton, New

26:37

York, they made bonfires of these history

26:40

books. Take AK history

26:42

books. Politicians in Congress

26:44

making teachers swear to not

26:47

speak about communism. Book

26:49

burnings. Instead of feeling like

26:51

now is worse than ever, I started

26:54

to wonder how we ever made our way out. But

26:57

of course, these people don't represent

26:59

everyone. In Binghamton,

27:01

New York, a group of parents were

27:03

outraged about the Ruggs textbook and the

27:05

superintendent spoke up. The school superintendent, Daniel

27:07

Kelly, said, I love these books. I

27:09

use these books. I read these books

27:11

to my children. Kelly went to the

27:13

school board and said, is anyone

27:16

here besides me? Has anyone here read

27:18

these books? And they all said no.

27:21

But we hear that they're socialists. We hear

27:23

that there's some person. And we can't

27:25

take that risk. If

27:27

they might be dangerous, we got to get rid of

27:29

them for the sake of the children. Daniel Kelly said,

27:31

if you want to get rid of them, fine, we'll

27:33

get rid of them. I'm not going to fight with

27:35

you about that because you seem so angry and you

27:37

haven't read the books and I'm not going to die

27:39

on this hill. Instead,

27:42

Superintendent Daniel Kelly just

27:44

ordered new textbooks, ones that

27:46

were very similar. And

27:48

that's what gives me hope. The adults

27:50

in the room, people like Superintendent Kelly

27:52

today are saying schools are going to

27:54

do what we've always done, which is

27:56

find ways to do what's best for

27:59

the children, even when some

28:01

people in the community are running around, doing

28:03

things that they're claiming are for the children

28:05

but are really dangerous for the children. So

28:08

this moment we're in now, it's similar to the

28:10

20s and 30s. I

28:13

wasn't too encouraged to learn that

28:15

considering the world wars we saw

28:17

in those decades. But lots

28:19

assured me America has gone through moments

28:21

like those in the 20s and 30s,

28:24

like today. People like Ronald

28:26

Reagan made their name in California, standing

28:29

up for a very

28:31

stunted curriculum. And

28:34

in fact, against books like Land

28:36

of the Free, which was a

28:38

history textbook. Again, super

28:40

similar to 1619 Project, a

28:42

history textbook that purportedly was gonna

28:44

include more non-white voices, especially

28:47

black voices. Ronald Reagan

28:49

makes a national name for himself

28:52

as a culture warrior, specifically about what

28:54

history to teach in the great state

28:56

of California. This scary

28:58

turbulent moment, according to Lotz,

29:01

it's been like this many times before, but

29:03

why does it keep coming up time

29:05

and again? It's a chronic

29:07

condition because the United States has

29:10

never been able to figure out its

29:12

pronouns. The United States cannot

29:15

define who we are and

29:18

who they are. And a

29:20

bunch of different groups for a hundred years

29:23

have tried to insist that our group

29:25

counts as part of the American us. That's

29:28

the problem. And it's always been

29:30

a problem, a chronic condition that

29:33

comes out during periods of stress,

29:35

like say a global pandemic, like

29:37

say a particularly turbulent presidency. These

29:40

stressors, this huge cultural tumult, like

29:42

what does America mean? Take

29:44

your pick. When you're living

29:46

in history, it's easy to forget we

29:49

are part of history and America

29:51

is no stranger to turbulence. In

29:53

the 1950s, we have anti-communism, and

29:56

McCarthyism. In the 1960s, the

29:58

name of the decade, even. means political

30:01

culture war. So no matter where

30:03

you look, it's a chronic condition

30:05

that America doesn't know how to

30:07

define itself. And we can kind

30:09

of muddle along. But when it

30:11

comes to what the schools are supposed to teach, suddenly

30:14

we have to say, Hey, wait, you know,

30:16

what do the kids need to know? And then

30:19

suddenly we have to define it, we can't, and

30:21

we being the United States, United States can't

30:23

tell kids who we are, because we literally

30:26

don't agree. America has

30:29

been through hard times before

30:31

those times stress our conflicting

30:33

identity crisis. Right now,

30:35

we are certainly feeling the effects. But

30:38

in the 70s, one town saw

30:40

blood spilled over textbooks. There's

30:42

an elementary teacher has a right

30:45

to challenge that child's belief in

30:47

God calls him to doubt that

30:49

there is a God. That's

30:52

after the break. Hi,

30:56

everyone, I'm Jenna Bush Hager from today with

30:58

Hoda and Jenna and the read with Jenna

31:00

book club. There's nothing I love more than

31:02

sharing my favorite reads with all of you,

31:04

except maybe taking to the exceptional

31:07

authors, the heavy stories. And that's

31:09

what I'll be doing each week on

31:11

my new podcast, Read with Jenna, I'll

31:13

be introducing you to some of my

31:16

favorite writers. These conversations will leave you

31:18

feeling inspired and entertained. New episodes of

31:20

Read with Jenna are released every Thursday.

31:22

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

31:26

Hi, folks, it's Beth Ann. I want to

31:28

tell you about another chart topping podcast that

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I think you'll love. It's called

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cautionary tales. Some

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believe that we're supposed to learn from

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our own mistakes. But cautionary tales is

31:39

here to reveal how other people's errors

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can be instructive to from efforts

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to control the weather that went

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disastrously awry to the untimely

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loss of the segue boss. History

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is a treasure trove of mishaps

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Don't miss out. Listen to cautionary

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32:17

Chapter 3 From Printed

32:19

Page to Bloodstained Streets It

32:23

was Willa Cather, the author, who

32:25

in 1936, she named it, she

32:27

heard the famous quote, The world

32:29

broke apart in 1922 or thereabouts,

32:32

meaning this sense of

32:35

a divided culture that can't agree

32:37

on what books are right for

32:39

children, who represent the canon of

32:41

what kids should read that has

32:44

for a as a through line been

32:46

it's about literally who

32:48

kids are becoming. If the

32:51

pressure, the pressure point,

32:53

the reason for these ferocious culture wars

32:55

in schools is because America doesn't know

32:57

what to tell children about what defines

32:59

American. Literature is the

33:02

thing in schools that is supposed

33:04

to have helped children to do that. To

33:06

pick just one episode, it was

33:09

the mid 1970s and it

33:11

was literally explosive. Her name

33:14

was Alice Moore and sadly she just passed away. She was

33:16

a really sweet and generous

33:18

person, but she was also an

33:20

Arctic conservative activist. She ran

33:22

took over a school board in 1974, Canaw

33:25

County, West Virginia. Moore took

33:27

her position on the school board seriously

33:29

and went through the textbooks they were

33:32

voting to approve. And she

33:34

took real issue with the new literature

33:36

textbooks. The school board

33:38

was just kind of passing it through. Clearly

33:40

the chairman expected this to be a very

33:42

boring school board meeting. All in favor. All

33:46

opposed. You know, just going through the motions,

33:48

but clearly expecting he would have five, you

33:50

know, unanimous five in favor. But then you

33:52

hear Alice Moore saying, well, now wait a

33:55

minute. Has anyone looked really closely at

33:57

these books? Because I haven't and they include.

34:00

Literature like E. E. Cummings. I

34:02

like my body when it is with your body. I

34:05

like your body. I like what it does.

34:08

I like its house. I

34:10

like to feel the spine of your body and

34:12

its bones, and the

34:14

trembling firm smoothness in which I will

34:17

again and again and

34:19

again kiss. Which

34:22

she thought was too sectional for kids. It

34:24

includes a Lawrence Furtin Getty poem. He

34:26

was one of the beats. The poem that

34:28

it included was Christ Climbed Down. Christ

34:31

climbed down from his bare tree

34:33

this year and ran

34:35

away to where no intrepid

34:37

Bible salesman covered the territory

34:39

in two-tone Cadillacs and where

34:41

no seers row-buck crushes complete

34:43

with plastic babes and manger

34:46

arrived by partial post. And

34:48

if you read the poem, I think a Christian

34:50

would say, I'm not much of a Christian, but

34:52

a Christian would say, actually this is a very

34:54

Christian poem because it says that Christ would look

34:56

sourly upon the bad things people have done in his

34:59

name. It included bits from

35:01

Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, his

35:03

prison memoir, his black military. I

35:06

had planned to run for president of the United

35:08

States. My slogan? Put

35:10

a black finger on the nuclear

35:12

trigger. 400 years of

35:15

docility, of being calm, cool and collected,

35:17

under stress and strain would go to

35:19

prove that I was the man for

35:22

the job. Even

35:25

a celebrity at the time got caught in

35:27

the crosshairs. There was an

35:29

excerpt from Evil Knievel's memoir. It

35:31

included bits from his memoir where he talks about

35:33

being a kid, taking, this is

35:35

the word he used, taking goofballs

35:38

and running away from cops. I don't

35:40

know what a goofball is exactly like,

35:42

pharmaceutical. But Alice Moore, the

35:44

conservative mom at the center of this,

35:47

didn't want her kids knowing about goofballs

35:49

or any of the text lots

35:51

mentioned above. So she made her

35:53

case against the textbook. Alice

35:56

Moore in 1974 said, this literature is not. It's

36:00

going to raise a new generation of

36:02

American kids. It's anti-Christian,

36:04

it's anti-patriotic, it's pro-drug,

36:06

it's anti-white, it's everything

36:08

bad. And we're not just

36:11

allowing kids to read it. We're

36:13

giving it to them in school and saying that

36:15

this counts as your culture. Read

36:17

it, learn it, this is you. It

36:19

got real ugly real fast. Moore

36:22

didn't have enough votes to ban the textbooks,

36:24

so she helped organize a boycott till the

36:26

school removed it. And things

36:28

got out of hand fast. Mr.

36:31

Cleaver, in his poetry, obviously

36:33

thinks it is meaningful to

36:35

write people. After a

36:37

three-hour debate on June 27, 1974, the board approved the books

36:39

and in response, Moore

36:44

and her supporters staged a boycott. Forty-five

36:47

thousand elementary school students were

36:49

kept home, minors, bus drivers

36:51

and trucking workers joined the

36:53

boycott. They dynamite bombed

36:55

the school district headquarters. They

36:59

firebombed elementary schools. Thankfully,

37:04

the bombing happened at night, so no one

37:06

was hurt. But this wasn't the

37:08

only act of violence over these textbooks.

37:11

They performed thicket lines, two people got

37:13

shot, not killed. So

37:15

school buses were sniped, you

37:17

know, with rifle fires. Cop cars

37:20

shot. The superintendent moved

37:22

his family out of town. For

37:24

people in Kanawha County, when they sent

37:26

you a death threat, you had

37:28

to take that seriously. He didn't sleep in the

37:30

same place two nights in a row. All

37:34

of this over textbooks. The

37:36

White House, the Ford administration got

37:38

involved. The White House sent

37:42

out an official statement after

37:44

the school district headquarters had been

37:46

dynamite bombed. The White House sent

37:48

out a formal statement in support

37:50

of the boycott, in

37:52

support of the side that had bombed the school

37:55

district headquarters. the

38:00

battle petered out. In the end, the county

38:02

came back to what the school district had

38:04

proposed in the first place. You

38:07

don't like the book, let's do this. We don't want

38:09

to keep the old textbooks. We need new textbooks. But

38:12

we'll have whatever books are the most sort of

38:14

controversial parents will have to sign a permission slip.

38:17

Two people are shot, buildings are bombed,

38:19

it's a mess. And

38:21

finally, they come back and say,

38:23

okay, that's what we'll do. Hardly

38:25

because it became clear that the

38:28

boycotters, even in a conservative

38:30

area like Canau County, West Virginia,

38:32

were in the minority. The biggest

38:34

march was in favor of

38:36

the books, and it was led by high school students.

38:39

So it fizzled, and you

38:41

ended up exactly at the same place we

38:44

had been before the boycott. It's just that

38:46

everyone was a lot angrier, and

38:48

the teachers were a lot more

38:50

frightened, and the teaching was

38:53

a lot more watered down.

38:56

I can't even imagine what that must have been

38:58

like for the teachers or the students. With

39:01

all this in mind, I started to

39:03

wonder, how bad is this moment? If

39:05

it's always been an issue, that's ebbed and

39:08

flowed. What should we

39:10

think about this culture war as it

39:12

continues into a third century? I

39:14

hate to say that this isn't as

39:17

bad as it gets, because the kinds of

39:19

things we're seeing now, and this I

39:21

say more as a teacher and a parent than as

39:23

a historian, but when I see

39:25

students who are

39:28

afraid to express

39:31

their identity, when I

39:33

see students who feel like the state

39:35

is like the government is somehow

39:39

against them as a gay

39:41

kid, as a black kid, it's hard enough to

39:43

be 17 years old, ever.

39:46

But to be in a school and

39:48

to have the governor of your state

39:50

either imply or stay straight out that

39:53

you don't somehow count as much as a fully

39:55

person as some other kinds of kids in that

39:57

school, that's as bad as it gets.

40:01

But on the other

40:03

hand, having said that, numbers

40:07

wise, it's been worse. In

40:09

the 50s, if you ask teachers in New York

40:11

City in 1953, they were fired in fistfuls. Between

40:18

1948 and 1953, 250 teachers

40:20

were forced out because of

40:23

concerns that they were communists

40:25

or had communist sympathies. They

40:28

had no autonomy to, they tried, they

40:30

sued. And that's one of the reasons

40:32

we know about it as historians, is

40:34

because they put their evaluations, their annual

40:36

evaluations, in the court records to prove

40:38

that they were good teachers and got

40:40

fired anyway. But they were accused of

40:42

being subversive and so they were fired.

40:45

So they weren't able to push back

40:47

successfully. They lost their jobs and again,

40:49

one even lost their life. Starting

40:52

in the late 40s and lasting over

40:55

a decade, teachers in New York were

40:57

subject to investigations trying to determine their

40:59

loyalty to the country. Minnie

41:01

Gautreide was one of the teachers subjected to

41:04

this. She was accused of

41:06

attending communist meetings nearly a decade

41:08

earlier. Two days after

41:11

being interrogated, she died by suicide. I'd

41:15

like to imagine, and I feel confident,

41:18

that at least today, Gautreide would

41:20

have supporters and resources to help

41:22

her. I didn't

41:24

think I'd say this when we started researching

41:26

the episodes on book bands, but

41:29

I'm at least grateful that the culture war

41:31

this time around, at least

41:33

so far, has been a cold war,

41:36

that buildings haven't been blown up, that

41:38

protesters haven't been shot. It's

41:40

cold comfort, I know. And

41:43

it doesn't change the fact that the situation today

41:45

is still dire. Next

41:48

week, we talk to those directly

41:50

affected. Missing

41:58

pages is a pod-glamorous Original,

42:00

produced, mixed, and mastered by

42:03

Chris Boniello with additional production

42:05

and editing by Jordan Aaron.

42:08

This episode was produced by Claire

42:10

McInerney. This episode

42:12

was written by Lauren Delisle. Additional

42:15

production and writing by Grant Irving.

42:19

Fact-checking by Douglas Weissman. Marketing

42:23

by Joni Deutsch, Madison

42:25

Richards, Morgan Swift, Vanessa Almond,

42:28

and Annabella Pena. Art

42:31

by Tom Grillo. Produced

42:33

and hosted by me, Bethann Patrick.

42:36

Original music composed and performed

42:39

by Hashim Asadolahi. Additional music

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provided by Epidemic Sound. Executive

42:45

produced by Jeff Umbro and the

42:47

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42:49

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42:54

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42:59

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43:11

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to As a Woman, Fertility Hormones

43:29

and Beyond. I'm your host Dr.

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Natalie Crawford, and I am a

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fertility physician and co-founder of Fora

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Fertility in Austin, Texas. We will

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talk about a wide range of

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topics, including the menstrual cycle, your

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hormones, infertility, IVF, mental health, and

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well, beyond. So join us

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and become part of the community of

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collaboration that amplifies others as

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a woman.