Jim Cullen - From Memory to History: Television Versions of the Twentieth Century

FROM MEMORY TO HISTORY

FROM MEMORY TO HISTORY

TELEVISION VERSIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

JIM CULLEN

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cullen, Jim, author.

Title: From memory to history : television versions of the twentieth century / Jim Cullen.

Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020031107 | ISBN 9781978813816 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978813823 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978813830 (epub) | ISBN 9781978813847 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978813854 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Television programsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Television and historyUnited States. | National characteristics, American. | History on television. | TelevisionSocial aspectsUnited States. | United StatesCivilization20th century.

Classification: LCC PN1992.3.U5 C845 2021 | DDC 791.45/750973dc23

LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2020031107

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright 2021 by Jim Cullen

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

www .rutgersuniversitypress .org

Manufactured in the United States of America

For
Andy Meyers

Friend, Colleague, Presence

FROM MEMORY TO HISTORY

EMPIREBUILDER

Atlantic City treasurer Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) addresses the citys Womens Temperance League chapter in the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire(2010). The series reminds viewers about the strong ties between those who favored Prohibition (which virtually everybody now thinks was a mistake) and womens suffrage (which virtually everybody now considers common sense) in a show about the 1920s that was fundamentally about the nature of powerone with contemporary reverberations.

D ECEMBER 31, 1919. On the boardwalk in Atlantic City, revelers have gathered in the legendary Babettes Supper Club to ring in a new year, a new decadeand, with a combination of disdain and derision, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The new law, buttressed by the recently passed Volstead Act, makes the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol illegal, a set of regulations collectively known as Prohibition. Earlier on New Years Eve, there had been a mock funeral procession featuring a gigantic fake bottle of John Barleycorn whiskey in a coffin, led by a blackface band performing a jazz version of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Now, at the stroke of midnight, black balloons fall and the ensemble at Babettes performs a version of Taps before launching into a raucous rendition of Tiger Rag, an early jazz standard. Its far from clear what Prohibition will meanexcept to a group of political and business leaders who met earlier that evening to prepare for the bonanza that will result once the only way to get a drink will be illegally.