Cultural Distortion: The Dedication of the Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson Monument at Manassas National Battlefield Park

The Stonewall Jackson monument on Henry Hill at the Manassas National Battlefield Park stands as a testament to the propensity of Americans to manipulate history in order to fit current circumstances. The monument reflects not the views and ideologies of the veterans of the Civil War, but rather the hopes and fears of those who spent the prime years of their lives immersed in the Great Depression. Those of the latter generation searched in vain for heroes among the corrupted businessmen on Wall Street who ran the economic affairs of the country, and who, in the eyes of the public, plunged the nation into insurmountable debt. Historian Lawrence Levine observed that fear served as a motivator for 1930s Americans as they struggled to feed their children during the Great Depression. One reflection of this overwhelming fear appeared in President Franklin Roosevelt\u27s 1933 inaugural address as he insisted “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In order to cope with this stress, Americans turned to a plethora of heroes as guiding lights for the dark days of the Great Depression. Some turned to gangster heroes like Bonnie and Clyde who undermined the financial and legal systems by lashing out against the institutions. Others devoured the serialized adventures of Superman, a new kind of hero created by the sons of Jewish immigrants in 1938. Still others turned to literature that reminisced about other crises in American history, namely Margaret Mitchell?s Gone with the Wind, a bestseller in 1938. It was in this cultural setting that the Virginia State Legislature conceived and financed the idea for a Stonewall Jackson monument

A One-In-A-Billion Chance : The Transformative Effect of Stan Lee and Spider-Man on American Popular Culture

The body of research from scholarly sources on the history of comic books contends that Stan Lee’s original run of The Amazing Spider-Man influenced American culture in a generic sense, but little has been written on the specific ways the comic influenced popular culture. This paper details four specific ways that Stan Lee’s Spider-Man influenced American popular culture during the tumultuous decade of the 1960’s. The comic redefined the modern American hero by making a flawed character, with a tenuous grasp on the moral high ground, the protagonist. It also affirmed the newly established teenage identity in American society by depicting a teenager as a full-fledged superhero, not a sidekick. Stan Lee’s Spider-Man also pioneered the use of the comic book medium as a platform to discuss contentious national issues during the 1960’s, including civil rights, drug abuse, and the Vietnam War. Finally, the title undermined censorship in the comic book industry by daring to defy the Comics Code Authority’s prohibition on depictions of drug use. Through these four groundbreaking efforts Stan Lee and Spider-Man earned their place in the pantheon of American popular culture icons and shaped the course of American culture for decades to come

Men of Steel & Sentinels of Liberty: Superman and Captain America as Civilians and Soldiers in World War II

This thesis examines Superman and Captain America comics during World War II, arguing that they portray the civilians’ and soldiers’ experiences of the war, respectively. The thesis begins by examining the creators’ backgrounds and how they influenced later portrayals of the war before proceeding to explore the wartime comics. During the war, DC used Superman as escapist fare to distract from the war while Timely Comics used Captain America to explore the issues of the war, such as portrayals of the Nazis and Japanese. The third and fourth chapters focus on these two issues: portrayals of Nazis and the Japanese. Both comics carefully distinguished between Germans and Nazis, avoiding racial stereotyping of Caucasians. The Japanese, however, were the most prevalent in a series of bluntly racist portrayals of non-whites in the comics. Superman and Captain America comics reinforced white supremacy and cast the war in racial terms. The two characters and their respective publishers used the relatively new medium of comic books to engage World War II in distinctly different ways, allowing the comics to portray the civilians’ and soldiers’ respective experiences

The Aluminum Age: Postmodern Themes in American Comics Circa 2001-2018

This thesis seeks to update the fan-made system of organization for comic book history. Because academia ignored comics for much of their history, fans of the medium were forced to design their own system of historical organization. Over time, this system of ages was adopted not only by the larger industry, but also by scholars. However, the system has not been modified to make room for comics published in the 21st century. Through the analysis of a selection modern comics, including Marvel’s Civil War and DC Comics’ Infinite Crisis, this thesis suggests a continuation of the age system, the Aluminum Age (2001-the present). Comics published during the Aluminum Age incorporate Postmodern themes and are unique to the historical context in which they were published. By analyzing the content of comics and the historical context in which they were published, this thesis proves the necessity of a new age

A Rural Nebraska Boy’s Comic Strip Narrative of World War II

The comics drawn by James “Jimmy” Kugler (the author’s father) when he was 13 in 1945 and living in Lexington, Nebraska provide a microhistorical perspective on at least four things. First, they offer a glimpse of an adolescent boy’s life in small town America during the mid-twentieth century. The strips took local buildings and situations and turned them into something strange, reflecting some of Jimmy’s loneliness and alienation. Further, they “back talked” the adults in charge of school and town. Second, they manifest the power of a dynamic American popular culture at the time. Jimmy’s war comic strips depict fairly simple characters, cinematic perspectives like close-ups or long distance, and framing from newsreels and combat films. The Frogs that he created reflect elements of cartoon figures of the era, including Ub Iwerk’s “Flip the Frog.” Third, they illustrate how a child’s imagination transposed a distant yet hard-to-escape war into a reflection of aspects of a world marked by authority and violence. The media portrait of World War II gave Jimmy authoritative permission to revel in mayhem, brutality, and spectacular destruction. The local coverage of the war reported more on the Pacific war with Japan than the war in Europe, and the behavior of Jimmy’s Toads in their war with the Frogs generally echoed common media portraits of the Japanese. Finally, Kugler’s war comic storytelling readily reshaped itself after the war into stories of violent crime and horror, paralleling how comic book taste more generally was moving in similar directions

Hail Hydra : Marvel\u27s Captain America and White Nationalism in the United States

In 2016, Captain America brought comic books to the forefront of national discussion with a single phrase: “Hail Hydra.” These two words proclaimed Captain America’s allegiance to Hydra, one of Marvel Comics most recognizable villains which has historically been used as an allegory for the Nazi Party. The moment incited a riot not only among comic book super fans, but casual onlookers as well. Many claimed that by aligning Captain America with Hydra author Nick Spencer disregarded the character’s origin as an anti-Nazi propaganda piece and later history as a defender of American values, and gave fuel to the growing Alt-Right movement in the United States.[1] However, this moment was not the first time that Captain America had joined the other side. In 1979, Captain America was briefly brainwashed into joining the National Force, an organization which acted as a clear allegory for the various white nationalist movements gaining power in the United States at the time. While Hydra and the National Force are comparable villains, the lenses through which the writers of both storylines present them reveal how views of white nationalism have changed in the United States. Through a comparative analysis of these two storylines, this paper examines the ways in which the Captain America comic books have reflected the shift in white nationalist movements from a largely condemned movement to a viable political force. This paper provides a new lens to examine the history of white nationalism in the United States while building on the current body of scholarship arguing for the importance of comic books as a historical source. [1] Abraham Riesman, “That Time Captain America Said ‘Hail Hydra’ and Geekdom Imploded,” Vulture, last modified April, 28 2019, https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/marvel-hydra-captain-america-nick-spencer.html

On the Beat: Stories from 1914-1918: A Fresh Approach to interpreting Crime History at Bishop’s Stortford Museum

Following the donation of a rare collection of policing documents from World War I, Bishop’s Stortford Museum displayed these remarkable accounts in a temporary exhibition entitled ‘On the Beat: The Great War 1914-1918.’2 Within this article I aim to theorise the problematic aspects of museum exhibition design and the construction of meaning within the context of exhibiting historical policing archives. This will be achieved by addressing specific elements within the gallery space, including the use of colour, atmosphere and emotion as well as the primary communicative approach of employing graphic novels and comic strips. I endeavour to illustrate that using a thoughtful, targeted and multimodal exhibitionary complex is a highly successful means of disseminating policing history to a broad audience