Henry Wiencek, Author at Not Even Past

Student Showcase – Give or Take: The Indian Removal Act

Kensey Wiggins
Anderson-Shiro Secondary School
Junior Division
Individual Exhibit

The Indian Removal Act was one of the most infamous moments in U.S. history. With the power of the federal government behind him, President Andrew Jackson authorized the removal of eastern Native American communities from their ancestral homelands and relocation to lands west of the Mississippi. Despite their best efforts, these Native tribes eventually lost sovereignty over their land and had to migrate west.

Kensey Wiggins’s Texas History Day exhibit explores the history behind this painful moment of Native American history. But he also sought to evaluate this controversial event from the perspective of Cherokee communities and President Andrew Jackson. Kensey talks about coming up with this topic in his process paper:

Kensey’s Texas History Day exhibit on the Indian Removal Act

Ever since third grade, I’ve been leaming about American Indians. It was, and is, a common topic to cover in class. One thing the indians always seemed to be involved in was denied rights, whether it was land rights, rights to live, or individual rights. Because of this, when I saw Andrew Jackson vs. The Cherokees among the sample topics, it was instantly at the top of my choices. I asked my teacher for more information about Andrew Jackson and The Cherokees and soon realized what a great project it would make for this year’s topic.

Selection from Kensey’s exhibit describing the contributions of Cherokee Chief John Ross

My project relates to the theme in many ways. It focuses on the opposing beliefs about the rights involved with the indian Removal Act. One side believes they are helping the Indians by removing them. They believed they were giving them the right to live how they wanted. While the other side, believed the government was stripping the Indians’ rights and forcing them eff of their homeland. There was, and still is, huge controversy over the Indian Removal Act and whether or not the indians were given rights or if they were having their rights taken away.

This week’s Texas History Day projects:

A website on an iconic Civil Rights moment

The often forgotten story of deportation and detention during WWII

Student Showcase – Better Safe Than Sorry? Internment of Rights in World War II

Helen Hartman
Rockport Fulton Middle School
Junior Division
Historical Paper

Read Helen’s Paper Here

The internment of Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War II is a familiar story. But did you know that Japanese, German, and Italian families from around Latin America were also deported to the U.S. and held in INS camps? Like the internment of Japanese-Americans, these deportations were intended to secure the Western Hemisphere from potential enemy sympathizers and create leverage for prisoner swaps. Many of these camps were right here in Texas.

Helen Hartman of Rockport Fulton Middle School wrote a research paper for Texas History Day outlining this often forgotten history of extralegal deportment and detention. You can read the full paper by clicking the link above and see an excerpt below:

Rohwer, Arkansas Relocation Camp for Japanese-American detainees

America’s founding fathers defined the rights guaranteed to American citizens in the Bill of Rights, and for over 200 years America has symbolized the “land of the free” both at home and abroad. However, during World War II, the U.S. government established internment camps that usurped the rights of both American citizens and non-citizens of Japanese, German, and Italian descent in the name of national security. Historians have largely documented the loss of Japanese Americans’ rights in War Relocation Authority Camps, which held people of Japanese ancestry who were removed from the West Coast. However, lesser-known camps run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), like those in Texas, violated the rights of citizens from both America and Latin America. Groups like the Japanese, with resources and political support, have been able to hold the American government responsible for their loss of rights and have received apologies and compensation. German American and German/Italian Latin American internees, however, have not yet received a formal acknowledgement of their internment or redress from the governments that rescinded their individual rights for the sake of national security.

April 1, 1942 New York Times article describing the American government’s search for enemy alien spies and sympathizers

Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor plunged America into World War II and united Americans against their Axis enemies, both at home and abroad. Amid the crisis, the United States government implemented a better safe than sorry policy, interning Japanese, Italian, and German Americans and Latin Americans in the name of wartime responsibility. The American press and most American citizens condoned the process, preferring to intern anyone considered a potential threat to America to omit any possibility that they might assist the enemy. However, this government policy not only violated the Constitutional rights guaranteed to American citizens but also violated international human rights by bringing Latin American citizens into America to barter them in prisoner exchanges.

More great Texas History Day projects:

The story behind a seminal moment in America’s Civil Rights movement

And a look back on one of the most turbulent periods in U.S. history

Student Showcase – The Montgomery Bus Boycott

William Louis
Burkburnett Middle School
Junior Division
Individual Website

In 1955, a collection of citizens in Montgomery, Alabama decided to stand up against the injustice of Jim Crow. Edgar D. Nixon, Martin Luther King and many other activists boycotted the city’s bus system to protest the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. After 381 days, the bus lines nearly went bankrupt. Ultimately, the city of Montgomery relented and reversed its policy of segregation on its city buses, galvanizing the Civil Rights movement across America.

William Louis, a student at Burkburnett Middle School, contributed to this year’s Texas History Day with a website on this seminal movement, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” But this was not just American history for William–it was also family history:

Commuters walking to work instead of riding the buses during the Montgomery bus boycott, 1956 (Don Cravens/Time Life/Getty Images)

As I journeyed through my family history, I discovered that a lot of good things have happened to us. However, we suffered a lot of injustices also. We suffered slavery and discrimination but, also experienced victory and defied the odds of racial barriers. At age six I did a presentation on slavery and how slaves came to America. This was the first time my mom went into detail about slavery, discrimination, and segregation. The more I learned about my family the more I learned about inequality. Since then, I have looked deeper into my family history, researched, read and studied pictures of slave ships as well as the welts on the backs of slaves. Now, at 11, I am just beginning to realize what others went through so I could be where I am right now.

Rosa Parks’ mug shot after being arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus (Wikipedia)

One of the people who helped me understand what African Americans went through was my Grandpa. He told me about having to sit in the back of the bus in Fayetteville, NC, when he was six years old. He told me how he sat at the front of the bus before his cousin snatched him up and took him to the back of the bus, where “the coloreds” belonged.

President Barack Obama sitting in the Montgomery bus where Rosa Parks was arrested. Parks was sitting in the same aisle but on the opposite side. (The White House)

This year’s National History Day is focused the theme Rights and Responsibilities. In America these rights include inalienable rights which are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, blacks were denied these rights. As a result, many courageous people like Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon, Claudette Clovin, and Martin Luther King took responsibility for the rights of blacks and others who were discriminated against.

More remarkable work from Texas middle and high school students:

A digital history of the trauma of Vietnam

And an account of America’s closest brush with destruction

Bringing the War Home

by Hamsini Nathan and Niti Malwade
Grisham Middle School
Junior Division
Group Website

The Vietnam War not only had a profound impact on southeast Asia, but also on the political and cultural history of the United States. Millions of Americans came to oppose this infamous conflict and, more deeply, distrust their own government.

For Texas History Day, Hamsini Nathan and Niti Malwade created “Bringing the War Home,” a website that tells the full story of the Vietnam War: its origins, its acceleration, the domestic political reaction and its lasting impact on American history. They conclude that the war significantly reshaped life in the United States:

U.S. Marine receives treatment in Huế City, 1968 (National Archives and Records Administration)

Although the Vietnam War was fought 8,400 miles away, it ripped apart American society. Many issues frustrated American servicemen: ambiguous military policies, a unilateral approach, the “never-ending” guerilla warfare, and a limited war strategy. American citizens were shocked by the rapidly mounting number of draftees, death toll, anti-war sentiments among the war veterans, and the horrors of the war portrayed in the media. Additionally, the Counterculture and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s spread discontent and the spirit of civil protest.

Anti-Vietnam War demonstration at the Pentagon, 1967 (Wikipedia)

The Vietnam War deeply affected all aspects of American lives. Communist expansion clouded the minds of Americans and the altruistic vision of saving Southeast Asia from the claws of Sino-Soviet domination became the goal of United States. The extreme costs of the war slowly degraded support for it and highlighted the controversy between instinctive and reflective patriotism. It challenged the rights of citizens and the responsibilities to their country during a war. These conflicts brought the war to the home front, changing American perspectives. It dramatically decreased the trust of the public in the government and discredited the military for years to come. Fifty years later, the experience in Vietnam still influences America’s role in the world.

Check up on more terrific Texas History Day projects:

The story of one man who stood up to Nazi slavery

And the moment when America–and the world–came close to nuclear war

David’s Mighty Stone: How One Slave Laborer Restored Survivors’ Rights

Kacey Manlove
Rockport Fulton High School
Senior Division
Historical Paper

Read Kacey’s Paper Here

Nazi Germany was not only responsible for death and violence across Europe. The Third Reich also enslaved millions in their factories. In particular, the German industrial giant I.G. Farben, which produced the Zyklon B that murdered so many during the holocaust, enslaved thousands in order to make its deadly products. But after the war’s conclusion, Norbert Wollheim, formerly an enslaved laborer for I.G. Farben, demanded reparations–both financial and moral–for his country’s use of slavery.

Kacey Manlove, a student at Rockport Fulton High School, wrote a research paper for Texas History Day that tells Wollheim’s remarkable story. You can read two excerpts below and open the full paper above.

IG Farben factory near Auschwitz, 1941 (German Federal Archive)

By the time World War II began on September 1, 1939, Hitler had already annexed Austria and the Sudetenland, and his army then rapidly advanced through Europe, implementing Anti-Semitic laws and creating pools of available laborers. Farben followed the German army to lay claim to chemical industries in annexed or conquered countries, increasing its holdings and profits five-fold to become the largest chemical company in the world. Hitler’s Reich exclusively utilized Farben’s fuel for armament, its chemicals for medical experiments, and its Zyklon B pesticide for executing prisoners incapable of work. By November 1940, Farben’s quota for synthetic rubber (buna) exceeded what its plants could produce. To satisfy the Reich’s needs, Farben agreed to quickly build two new plants, one an extension of their current plant in Ludwigshaften, Germany, the other in Auschwitz, Poland, home of the Nazi’s largest concentration camp system (appendix D). Farben officials specifically selected the Auschwitz location to use raw materials from the nearby Furstengrube coal mines for energy and existing railways for easy shipping. The Auschwitz camp system also provided access to prisoners whom Farben utilized for slave labor in exchange for a nominal payment to the Schutzstaffel [SS]. Slave laborers built Buna/Monowitz, the first industry-based concentration camp, to accommodate Farben’s needs (appendix E), and by 1945, Farben utilized more than 100,000 slave laborers in its various plants. Nazi Labor General Fritz Sauckel authorized Farben’s employees to exploit prisoners “to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.” After the war, this policy would become the core principle in Norbert Wollheim’s suit against Farben for redress.

Labels taken from canisters of Zyklon B from the Dachau gas chambers (USHMM, courtesy of National Archives)

Norbert Wollheim’s suit and subsequent agreement with German industrial giant I. G. Farben not only reclaimed rights for survivors in Buna/Monowitz but also set a precedent for toppling other German industry giants that had used slave laborers to support Nazi Germany. Governments of both America and the Federal Republic of Germany played critical roles in concluding the reparations process that the Wollheim Agreement had begun. All German firms stipulated that their settlements represented a moral obligation, not an admission of any legal responsibility, but to former slave laborers, the monetary redress they received provided a sense of closure, exemplifying the justice they had been denied at Nuremberg. Against great odds, Wollheim’s civil suit had cast the first stone, defeating an industrial giant. The ripple effect caused by that defeat paved the way for additional settlements that have compensated over 1.6 million former slave laborers for their loss of rights during one of the greatest human rights violations in the twentieth century.

Check out the latest Texas History Day projects at Not Even Past:

O Henry Middle School student Maura Goetzel’s paper on liberty and security in early America

And a group of Westwood High School students’s website on America’s most dangerous moment

The Cuban Missile Crisis

by Priya Ramamoorthy, Kavya Ramamoorthy, Smrithi Mahadevan and Maanasa Nathan
Westwood High School
Senior Division
Group Website

Over thirteen tense days in October, 1962, nuclear conflict nearly broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union. These global superpowers were engaged in a bitter standoff over the appearance of Soviet nuclear missiles on the newly communist island of Cuba, just 90 miles south of Florida. Fortunately, after days of diplomacy and negotiation, tensions cooled and neither side deployed their nuclear arsenal. According to Stacey Bredhoff, Curator of the Kennedy Library, those terrifying two weeks, later dubbed The Cuban Missile Crisis, “was certainly the most dangerous episode in human history.”

A map of the Cuban missile positions (Getty 50th Anniversary Gallery)

Westwood High School students Priya Ramamoorthy, Kavya Ramamoorthy, Smrithi Mahadevan and Maanasa Nathan won first place in the Senior Group Website category at Texas History Day with their digital report on this infamous moment in world history. The site explores the political context of the crisis, the individuals involved, key events and its aftermath. You can explore their award winning site, “The Cuban Missile Crisis” here.

“Danger off our shores: This newspaper map shows the distances from Cuba to various cities on the North American continent.” – (Bettmann/CORBIS, TIME Magazine)

The group concludes that it was a seminal moment in not only American history but global history:

The crucible of the Cuban Missile Crisis captured the attention of President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev and forced them to prioritize world stability over national rights. This culminated in an increased understanding of each political adversary’s perspective. The crisis proved that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is an unreliable deterrent. Although fifty years have passed, its lessons remain relevant. As more nations develop nuclear weapons with each passing year, the risk of a devastating exchange increases. To prevent nuclear war diplomacy must be prioritized at all times. While exercising their sovereign rights, countries must consider the bigger picture of global stability.

Ten Things to Remember During Your Research Year

by Julia Gossard

Congratulations, you passed your comps!

Now the reality sets in that in order to write your brilliant dissertation, you have to do some serious research. Here are a few things to remember in order to survive and even thrive during your research year.

The New York City Public Library’s Research Room (Wikipedia/User Diliff)

1. Plan your stay around the archives’ hours and opening days (which do not always correspond with semesters).

Don’t organize your research trip around your school’s academic calendar. Before you even buy a plane ticket, check the schedule of each archive you want to visit. Use this to plan how long you will spend at each location. Some archives close for entire weeks, even months, around the winter holidays. Others close on certain days of the week, or have rules about ordering documents in advance. Most importantly, be sure that the archives are still operational. One of my colleagues arrived in Romania only to find that the archive she had hoped to visit was closed for the next three years for renovation.

2. Keep a consistent schedule but take breaks.

Establish a routine early on in your stay. The most important thing is to find the schedule that works best for you and stick to it. The first few adrenaline-fueled weeks go by in a flash, but by week four you’re exhausted. While maximizing your hours, remember to take plenty of breaks. Research has shown that people are more productive when they take consistent breaks every ninety minutes or so. Some of these breaks should be small, five to ten minute strolls down to the coffee machine, but one of these breaks should be substantial — at least thirty minutes. A good time to eat lunch or a snack. By breaking up your work like this, you are not only staving off hunger and malaise, but you are also giving yourself the time to process the information you have looked at so far. Give yourself breaks on the weekends and in the evenings as well. Determine when you will organize your research and write, but give yourself enough time to relax as well.

3. Determine what type of a relationship you will keep with your adviser and committee before you leave.

It is very important to discuss with both your advisor and members of your committee how often they would like to hear from you and in what capacity. Determining this before you leave will make your life much easier and will lay out clear expectations for you (and for your advisor!) Don’t be afraid to reach out to your advisor and members of your committee for advice when you run into difficult situations or when you need to celebrate a success. There’s a good chance that your advisor actually wants to hear from you.

4. The archives’ inventories you have spent the past several months pouring over may be out of date or inaccurate.

On my first day of research in Paris, I went to the archive that I thought housed the “treasure trove” for my dissertation. Ten minutes after confidently writing the call numbers on the reservation slips, the archivist returned saying tersely, “These documents do not exist.” It turns out that the online inventories were from the nineteenth century and did not conform to the new catalogue. It took me well over a full week to track down all the new call numbers, but many of the documents were still missing. This frustrating experience reminded me of something my comprehensive exam committee told me: Your dissertation proposal should serve as a blueprint and should be a constantly evolving plan. In other words, do not panic if the documents you thought would be in the archive are not there or are in a state of disrepair. Be flexible and creative in finding other sources and avenues of research and be prepared to modify your dissertation proposal accordingly.

Reading room of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris (Wikipedia/User Marie-Lan Nguyen)

5. Reach out to other scholars who have worked on similar projects.

Now that you’re an expert in your field thanks to comps, chances are you know who works on projects similar to yours. Don’t be afraid to contact your favorite historians for advice or help. Many of these historians will be delighted to hear from you and willing to share their experiences. One professor I contacted offered invaluable advice in regards to the archives and my argument.

6. Find a community of fellow graduate students, scholars, or expats to avoid the isolation that comes with research.

When I got to Paris, I met regularly with the other graduate students working in my archives. We discussed archival issues, research, and life in general. I also made sure to get coffee or lunch with different researchers. If you can, strike up a conversation with a fellow researchers in the coatroom or by the coffee machine, but if you’re a little bit shy you can send out an email to one of the many academic (H-Net for instance) listservs to see if there are other people working at your archives or in the same city who might be interested in meeting for coffee, a meal, or doing some sight seeing on the weekend. You can also meet people in cultural centers and clubs in your area. I joined the American Club of Lyon as well as the American Library of Paris where I got to go to a variety of events and meet expats from all walks of life. Other graduate students joined church choirs or audited classes at French universities. Some grad students chose to live in French dormitories in order to meet other French and international students. Even if you thoroughly enjoy the alone time that research provides, it is important to have some social interaction and a support community, otherwise you may find yourself having imaginary conversations with the authors of your documents.

7. Bring enough of anything from home that you deem a “necessity.”

This one seems like a no-brainer, but really examine what you feel you cannot survive without. If it is a favorite coffee, bring enough. If it is a certain pair of sweatpants, bring them. Depending on where you conduct your research, you can get away with bringing less because you can purchase comparable goods there. However, there are some things — medicine, contacts, glasses, and technological devices — that you should bring enough of to sustain you for your entire time abroad. Also remember that if you are traveling outside the US, your appliances may not work (and can even blow an electrical fuse in your apartment!). Bring adaptors.

8. You may finish earlier or later than you expected. Budget accordingly.

It is possible that those documents you thought held the “keys” to your dissertation weren’t really the magical artifacts you had hoped they were. You may notice that you’re going through documents at an alarmingly fast rate. Conversely, you may notice that you’re moving incredibly slowly. If you find yourself running out of documents to look at, start writing – or at least organizing your research. More than likely you’ll find gaps or related questions that didn’t initially occur to you to investigate. If you find yourself taking longer to complete your research, prioritize your documents and set realistic goals for yourself. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to immediately come back for the documents that you weren’t able to read. If all else fails, during the last week of your research, take pictures of all the documents you might need. You can always organize and read them at home.

9. Back up your work in multiple locations. Seriously.

Cameras break, memory cards go missing, computers crash, and external hard drives mysteriously start smoking. Back up your notes and photos in multiple locations. I backed up my photos and notes in three locations – on a cloud server, an external hard drive, and on memory cards. These notes and photos are your livelihood so remember to back them up every day. I made it a habit to immediately back up my memory cards when I got home both onto the external hard drive and to the cloud. I’d highly suggest buying high capacity (32GB) memory cards – this way you can just continue to take pictures all day without having to download them to your computer and delete the images.

Letter written by Philip II, King of Spain, 16th century (Wikipedia)

10. Keep a research journal.

My research journal is full of half-developed ideas, embarrassingly wrong presumptions, and the occasional funny letter to myself (“Dear Future Julia”), however my research journal has proved indispensible to my dissertation. I kept a list of all the documents I examined, official notes, and a research journal. Everyone organizes their notes differently, but the Table of Contents feature in Microsoft Word was a quick and easy way to organize my official notes and I’d highly recommend using it. My research journal was much more unstructured. Whenever I was in the archive and noticed similarities between different documents or had a stroke of brilliance, I immediately wrote it into my research journal. After coming home from the archives each night, I also made a short entry, detailing my findings, any ideas I had, and what I planned to do the next day. Many of the ideas, similarities, or strokes of genius I had in my journal have grown into larger arguments or anecdotes for my dissertation.

Your research year will be full of both exciting finds as well as periods of somewhat monotonous searching. However, if remember to thrive instead of just survive your research year, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your academic career.

Julia M Gossard is a PhD Candidate in the History Department at UT Austin. During the 2012-2013 academic year, she conducted research in France thanks to a Department Fellowship, The Society for French Historical Studies Marjorie M. and Lancelot L. Farrar Memorial Award, and the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Scholars Robert R. Palmer Research Travel Award.

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Balancing Rights and Responsibilities in Times of Crisis

by Maura Goetzel
O Henry Middle School, Austin, TX
Junior Division
Individual Historical Paper

Read Maura’s Paper Here

The Alien and Sedition Acts are one of the most infamous laws in American history. Signed into law in 1798, these dual pieces of legislation gave President John Adams two controversial pieces of executive power: the ability to deport any alien the President deemed “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” and the restriction of “seditious” political speech. The ruling Federalist Party justified these repressive measures by claiming they were essential to combating the violent ideas spreading from Revolutionary France.

For her Texas History Day project, O Henry Middle School student Maura Goetzel wrote a history of the Alien and Sedition Acts and considered how early Americans balanced liberty and security.

President John Adams (Wikipedia)

“Throughout our history we have found that it is difficult to balance liberty and security, especially in times of crisis. If people are given too much freedom, anarchy could result; conversely, if the government goes too far in its exercise of security, we might compromise an “unalienable” right. This problem becomes even more difficult in times of crisis. When people get afraid, they want protection. But how far can the government go in exercising its responsibilities without jeopardizing the people’s rights?”

Original copy of the 1798 Sedition Act (United States Federal Government)

“The Alien and Sedition Acts provided the first test of a young United States government in balancing an individual’s rights against the government’s responsibilities to provide for the common defense. The Acts, like the recent Patriot Act, were passed ‘in a period of real and perceived threats to the homeland.’ History ultimately determined that the Federalist Party went too far, and that the nature of the threat was no reason to ignore the Bill of Rights.”

Germans into Nazis, by Peter Fritzsche (1998)

by Kevin Baker

In Germans into Nazis, Peter Fritzsche examines four moments in German history between 1914 and 1933 that exemplify how the Nazi movement became possible. He looks at the mass crowds of July-August 1914 when Germany mobilized at the beginning of the Great War, the crowds in 1918 following military defeat, the crowds after Hitler was appointed Chancellor, and the May Day celebration in 1933. Like Ian Kershaw, Fritzsche argues that the war made the Nazi movement possible. Never before August 1914 had so many people in Germany mobilized for a single cause. This gave those early “August days” a populist feel. German citizens of all social strata, backgrounds, and beliefs, including Adolf Hitler, stood together in Berlin, attempting to form a national community, the Volksgemeinschaft. Fritzsche posits that this national community, unlike previous, rigid Victorian social structures, grabbed a foothold in the German imagination. Germans began reimagining the nation and constructed a national identity that only could have emerged through the war and its legacy.

Germans turned into Nazis slowly through grassroots movements and the waning legitimacy of previous conceptions of the German nation. During the war, the Kaiserreich lost legitimacy because of the inability to adequately take care of its citizens. Food shortages and strikes became the norm and Germans began to remember those August days when a unified German Volk stood in the crowds. Fritzsche argues that after the war even larger crowds gathered and “the definitive measure of Germany’s political figure had now become the people, the great curbside republic of soldiers, workers, and consumers.” More extensively than during the Kaiserreich, the middle classes and lower classes expressed their collective voice together through mass movements. They believed that interest groups and political parties served exclusionary masters and that a truly völkisch movement would eradicate both the noble order and the fragmented political nature of the Weimar Republic Increasingly during the 1920s Germans left their political parties to join the Nazis.

Adolf Hitler receiving an ovation at the window of the Reich Chancellery after his inauguration as chancellor, January 30, 1933 (German Federal Archives)

Fritzsche convincingly argues that a simple homogenous explanation cannot account for the Nazis’ popularity. He explains that the war broke apart old notions of what it meant to be German. The Kaiser’s abdication allowed for a power vacuum. The new republic incorporated a political regime that Germans could stand against together much as they stood together in August 1914 to fight for a unified Germany. And importantly, according to Fritzsche, Paul von Hindenburg’s election to the presidency in 1925 reflected the national mood and ushered in a window of opportunity for a Hitler to emerge. Hindenburg represented the war-soldier culture and national unity that enabled Germans to reimagine the nation.

Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler and Viktor Lutze at the Nuremberg Rally, September 1934 (German Federal Archives)

Fritzsche argues that the Nazis exploited this reimagination better than anyone else. They helped invent and constantly alluded to the Volksgemeinschaft that the people wanted. The Nazis travelled to thousands of towns and cities, speaking directly to the German people and uniting rather than dividing them. While the conservative and liberal parties served special interests, the Nazis tried to maintain a broad, all-encompassing agenda that had mass appeal, and excluding Jews and Communists, whom the majority despised. Mass appeal caused social democrats, conservatives, liberals, rich and poor to vote Nazi. Instead of appealing to violent anti-semitism, they spoke of programs to put all of the unemployed back to work. They spoke of strengthening the nation and ending the Communist threat from within. Women turned Nazi because they thought that National Socialism presented them with better opportunities to return to the labor force, serve the community, and have a voice in the new national community. In other words, the Nazis appealed to the populist revolts that took place just before and just after the war. Thus Nazism “was rooted in the imagination.” It was not a movement solely against the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I or for anti-semitism, but a movement that spoke to the broad national community that wanted to break from the old and create a new Volksstaat or German nation.

Fritzsche’s prose is easily understandable and anyone interested in German or Nazi history will enjoy this book. Germans into Nazi remains one of the quintessential works on the origins of the Nazi party.

Has Texas Seen its Last Liberal?

A new HBO documentary, “All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State,” takes a look back at the life of the political icon.

by Zachary Montz

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Buenas noches, mis amigos! I am delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like.” This is how America first met Ann Richards, her trademark white hair lit by the spotlight as she delivered the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in her distinctive Central Texas twang. Richards, then the state treasurer, poured it on that night, mixing a stalwart defense of activist government with swipes at the Republican nominee, fellow Texan George H.W. Bush, including her perfectly landed mocking line, “Poor George, he can’t help it – he was born with a silver foot in his mouth,” that brought the audience to its feet. Along with the jabs, Richards gave delegates the country wit and big personality they might have expected from a rising Texas politician. But here, too, was something new from a state famous for its macho self-image: a woman, and a proud, sharp-tongued liberal at that. The fiery speech won the hearts of delegates, prompting some to wonder if the Democrats had nominated the wrong person. Ann Richards had become a national star.

Texas Governor Ann Richards in 1992 (Kenneth C. Zirkel/Wikimedia Commons)

Richards’s keynote provides the opening for HBO’s recently-premiered documentary “All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State,” which airs on the cable network throughout May, as well as on HBOGo. An opportunity for longer-settled Texans (and non-citizens too) to revisit the life and career of the woman who rose to the top of the state’s conservative and male-dominated political scene, this excellent documentary also serves to introduce Richards to a new generation, who know a Texas where the politics have gone from conservative to right-wing and are almost as single-gender as they were when Richards was elected governor in 1990.

Originally released in 2012, this product of first-time documentarians Jack Lofton and Keith Patterson, was subsequently acquired by HBO’s documentary division, which recut the film to tighten its focus on Richards’ career in statewide office, from her election as State Treasurer in 1982 to her gubernatorial loss to George W. Bush in 1994. While “All About Ann” features commentary from Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis, Dan Rather and other national figures, some of the best insights come from interviews with Richards’ inner circle of advisors, namely long-time chief of staff Mary Beth Rogers and speechwriter Suzanne Coleman. Contributions from Richards’ former husband David and from her children, including daughter Cecile, now a Democratic political player and Planned Parenthood president, give viewers a look at Richards’ time both before and after her stint in big-league politics and provide a sense of how the many sides of her well-known personal life – as a mother, grandmother, teacher, divorcee, and recovering alcoholic – helped shape her political outlook and public persona.

Of course, there is no substitute for the woman herself, and the film is wise to let Richards, who died in 2006, tell much of her own story. The directors take advantage of archival newsreel, interviews, and televised debates and speeches to show the full depth of Richards’ character, her knack for language, and the prodigious communication skills (one thing we learn is that Richards’ mother enrolled her in “expression lessons” as a child) that took her to the Governor’s Mansion.

Ann Richards poses on a motorcycle (Texas State Library and Archives Commission)

Viewers get only a quick run through Richards’ life before elected office: her upbringing in Waco and high school debating triumphs, her marriage in college to David Richards, who would become a prominent labor and voting rights lawyer, and her time raising four children in Dallas and later Austin. As she explains it, a career in politics was not something she had initially considered. “I was exactly what the magazines said I ought to be,” Richards recalled, “I was a hostess, a fabulous cook, a chauffer, [and] I was very involved with my kids.” Richards had been involved on the outside of politics, doing the “women’s jobs” of social planner and campaign volunteer, but when David passed on a chance to run for a seat on the Travis County Commissioners court in 1976, Ann jumped into the game, winning election in her first race. Richard worried that the dramatic shift in her life and the new role she would play in her family would spell trouble for her marriage. She was right. Although they remained on generally good terms, the couple split in 1980 and divorced in 1984.

It was around the same time that Richards went through treatment for alcohol addiction. Richards’ personal life was the subject of many a dirty political attack during her career, the most common of which were that she had fallen off the wagon or that she was bisexual. In the 1990 Democratic gubernatorial primary Richards was dogged by Attorney General Jim Maddox’s frequent allegations of past cocaine use. Richards skillfully dodged the question, turning it into an opportunity to talk frankly with voters about overcoming her alcohol problem. Not that Richards couldn’t play rough too. In the same race she put away former Governor Mark White with ads that implied – with no real proof – that he had been paid to steer state business to a Houston bond firm.

Watching Richards counterpunch her way to victory in a good, old fashioned Texas melee like the ’90 primary is a delight for the political junkie, but it would be a mistake to let Richards’ campaigning talents distract from what was at the heart of Richard’s political story: her desire, as she put it, to create a “new Texas,” one where the “doors of government” would “swing open” to “let the people in.” As the documentary makes clear, this purpose was present from the beginning of Richards’ entry into public service, and the film gives considerable attention to her tenure as State Treasurer, where Richards earned acclaim for reforming an office that was a bastion of good-old-boy inefficiency when she took over in 1983. Richards modernized the Treasury, both by computerizing its workings and by emphasizing the hiring of minorities and women in an effort to make the government of Texas better reflect the state’s diverse population.

Ann Richards speaking at the 1988 Democratic Convention (Associated Press)

In the debates over hiring and affirmative action in the 1980s, many conservatives argued that measures to create diverse workforces would come at the expense of job performance. Excellence and diversity were counterpoised values. Richards had no need to play that game. “They told me that I was asking the impossible, that I simply could not find Hispanics and blacks and women who were capable… of really high-class financial management,” Richards recalled in 1991. But her success in the Treasury, she argued, “has been directly the result of opening the door and giving an opportunity to people who were dying to prove themselves.” In Ann Richards’ new Texas, diversity and excellence went hand in hand. And one only had to look at other areas of Texas government to know that the opposite was also true: a closed door, and the old boys network that thrived behind it, could be a recipe for incompetence and corruption.

Richards’ commitment to diversity and her vision of an open government, among other convictions, put her in the left-liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party, an outsider compared to the so-called pragmatic or conservative Democrats who continued in the tradition of LBJ and John Connally.Texas liberals had rarely been in the driver’s seat of their own party, never mind in the Governor’s Mansion, and given the state’s current domination by Republicans, it is worth asking how Richards ever managed her upset victory in 1990. Certainly her opponent had something to do with it. That year, the Republicans nominated Clayton Williams, a man who seemed to be made in their own self-image: a wealthy businessman, a rancher, and a straight-shooter. What they got was a political fool who shot himself in the foot enough times to blow an early double digit lead. The documentary airs the full “Claytie” blooper reel. It would be pure comedy if Williams’s attitude towards women didn’t seem so out of our present political moment: a disgusting rape “joke,” a comment about Richards that he would “head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt,” and a decision (a premeditated one, as the film reveals) to refuse to shake his opponent’s hand after a televised debate.

Ironically, it is the clownish version of Williams that conservatives like to remember, for it allows them to write off Richards as an accidental governor, one who won only by dint of her pitiful opponent. But as several of Richard’s former staffers point out in “All About Ann,” it wasn’t only the misogyny that undid Williams. The margin of victory came from working class voters, especially in East Texas – a generally-conservative group, but one with a populist streak. Richards could out-good-ole-boy the good-ole-boys and could poke fun at Texas’s bubbas while winning their vote, and her campaign coupled her personal touch with a concerted effort to portray Williams as a big businessman unconcerned with working Texans. Williams’ steadfast refusal to release his tax returns, and his out-of-the-blue admission in the campaign’s final week that he had paid no taxes during the crash year of 1986, helped Richards rack up votes in East Texas, sealing the election for her.

From left: Texas Governor Ann Richards, Nelson Mandela, Dominique de Menil, And Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis (Senator Rodney Ellis/Wikipedia)

From left: Texas Governor Ann Richards, Nelson Mandela, Dominique de Menil, and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis, 1991 (Senator Rodney Ellis/Wikipedia)

Richards began her governorship ready to “make changes that should have been made a long time ago.” Continuing her record as treasurer, she appointed an even split of men and women in her first 100 days. The officials reflected the diverse state: 54% were white, 25% Hispanic, and 21% black. The film provides a laudatory overview of Richards’ term. She threw out rubber-stamp regulators in the insurance department, passed a new ethics law, put teeth into seldom-enforced environmental rules, and implemented an addiction treatment program in state prisons to reduce recidivism, all broadly popular moves that kept her personal approval ratings high and grew her national profile.

This approving account of Richards’ time in office provides little sense of her shortcomings, and notably excludes mention of struggles involving the budget and school finance. The oversight is compounded by the directors’ failure to include any interviews with either critics or opponents of the former Governor. As a result, “All About Ann” is hard pressed to explain just how Richards, despite her personal popularity, lost decisively to George W. Bush in 1994. The film provides two culprits: Karl Rove, a political consultant made uniquely powerful by a lack of scruples, and an election cycle unusually hostile to Democrats. The film puts Rove behind rumors that Richards’ supposed legions of gay supporters were poised to spread their “lifestyle” through the public schools, and a whisper campaign about gun confiscation, an effective, if unoriginal, charge that was bolstered by Richards’ veto of concealed carry legislation. Meanwhile, Bush – a likeable, attractive, and disciplined campaigner – could play it straight, avoiding the personal attacks and mistakes that destroyed his Republican predecessor. Although he criticized Richards for being soft on crime and presented his own ideas about education reform, Bush ran against Bill Clinton as much as the sitting Governor, attacking an unpopular president in a midterm year that would give Republicans control of Congress.

Just as the idea of Richards as an accidental governor denies her ground-breaking victory, the story presented by her allies that she was felled by forces beyond her control denies Richards’ role in her own defeat. As Jan Reid argues in his sympathetic, but by no means uncritical, 2012 biography of Richards, the Governor’s term can be seen as a parabola: real successes in the first two years were followed by a decline in the latter two. Richards divided her time and energy between governing in Austin and involvement in the national scene, leaving her without a clear program and on the defensive against a rising tide of Republican attacks. In 1990 Richards had been the brassy outsider. Four years later, lacking a bold policy agenda to match her personality, she was open to being defined by her enemies and vulnerable to the sorts of attacks – guns, God and gays – that Rove and Co. used to great effect. Her campaign centered on the complaint that Bush was a spoiled novice whose only qualification for the Governorship was that he thought he was entitled to it. She couldn’t convince enough Texas voters that he was not.

Image of Ann Richards firing a gun from the film, “Backwards and In High Heels” (Texas Democrats)

Richards would find plenty to do after leaving the Governor’s Mansion. She had no interest in running for another elected office, telling the public after her loss that “I’ve been doing this for 18 years – not as long as I was a housewife – and now I look forward to something new.” The documentary shows the many roles she played: as a lobbyist and strategist, lecturer, stump speaker for female Democratic candidates, and as a fantastic talk show guest. All throughout she continued her fight on behalf of the causes she had advanced during her political career, especially the rights of women to control their own bodies, right up until her death from esophageal cancer in 2006.

The release of “All About Ann” comes as another Texas woman, the first, in fact, since Richards, has received the Democratic gubernatorial nod, and comparisons between the two are inevitable. Like Ann Richards, Wendy Davis has captured national attention and built a dedicated base among Texas women at a time when reproductive rights are at the forefront of political conversation. Unlike Richards, however, Davis faces a Republican Party that is much more dug in, and her opponent, Greg Abbott, while perhaps not having the personal likability of George W. Bush or Rick Perry’s deep understanding of the right wing id, is no Clayton Williams. And outside of her core supporters, Davis has yet to show that she can connect with Texas voters in the way that Richards did in 1990.

But “All About Ann” reminds viewers that Richards too faced an uphill battle when she declared her candidacy for the governorship. It was against these long odds when she was at her fighting best. The documentary closes with a poignant clip of Richards speaking at a LGBT fundraiser in 2003, coughing her way through a powerful address, already suffering from failing health. Recalling the many barriers to women and minorities that had fallen in her lifetime, Richards encouraged her audience to continue the effort to create the sort of “pluralistic society where human dignity is cherished” that had been at the heart of her political life. “We have got to remember that we have the power… that dreams can come true if we are willing to work for them.” It has been the mantra of Texas liberals in the many fights they lost in Ann Richards’ lifetime, and in the few that were won.

Zachary Montz received his PhD in History from UT Austin in 2014

Sources:

Some background information on Richards’ term as Governor, as well as demographic information on her appointees, is drawn from Jan Reid’s excellent biography, Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards (University of Texas Press, 2012)

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