Erik Christiansen. Channeling the Past

Erik Christiansen chronicles five different historical initiatives undertaken in post–World War II America to explore the ways that various practitioners channeled the past for uses during the Cold War. The initiatives engaged different media, from books, to historic sites, to television and radio. They also reflected different perspectives, from those of liberal academics, to communist television writers, to right-wing corporate leaders. All employed the past to advance a contemporary agenda and attempted to tell real “history” to the public. Each initiative “inevitably faced commercial or political realities that forced them to modify their approaches and replace ‘history’ with ‘memory’” (p. 23). Three of the featured initiatives occurred almost simultaneously. The History Book Club began in 1947 under the direction of a committee of university-based historians representing different regions of the country. The earliest editors, led by Bernard DeVoto, hoped to make expert recommendations about unfamiliar books and topics to educate readers. The selections leaned toward narrative tellings, progressive interpretations, liberal politics, and explicit connections to the present. After one year of troubled sales, a new board, under the direction of Dumas Malone, “preferr[ed] greater commercial success based on catering to what people already knew” (p. 23). The radio and television series, Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the Du Pont Corporation from 1935 to 1957, offered a different view of history. The long-running series celebrated individualism and big business, patriotism and nationalism, while also emphasizing the corporation's virtues and the blessings of non-regulation. Du Pont used history education as a cover for self-promotion. The program relied on historians as experts but was written by the marketing department. In contrast, CBS's You Are There series, which aired from 1947 to 1957, involved reporters from the present who witnessed historical scenes and interviewed actors portraying persons from the darker episodes of American history, including Indian massacres, treason, and the Salem witch trials.

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