"Haskell tells the tale of the Kansas City Star's rise and decline, taking readers into the city room and executive offices of one of the most respected American newspapers. This story includes Kansas City notables as Tom Pendergast, J. C. Nichols, Frank Walsh, William Rockhill Nelson, Henry J. Haskell and Roy A. Roberts"--Provided by publisher.
Winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize by the Harvard Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy Manipulating the Masses tells the story of the enduring threat to American democracy that arose out of World War I: the establishment of pervasive, systematic propaganda as an instrument of the state. During the Great War, the federal government exercised unprecedented power to shape the views and attitudes of American citizens. Its agent for this was the Committee on Public Information (CPI), established by President Woodrow Wilson one week after the United States entered the war in April 1917. Driven by its fiery chief, George Creel, the CPI reached every crevice of the nation, every day, and extended widely abroad. It established the first national newspaper, made prepackaged news a quotidian aspect of governing, and pioneered the concept of public diplomacy. It spread the Wilson administration’s messages through articles, cartoons, books, and advertisements in newspapers and magazines; through feature films and volunteer Four Minute Men who spoke during intermission; through posters plastered on buildings and along highways; and through pamphlets distributed by the millions. It enlisted the nation’s leading progressive journalists, advertising executives, and artists. It harnessed American universities and their professors to create propaganda and add legitimacy to its mission. Even as Creel insisted that the CPI was a conduit for reliable, fact-based information, the office regularly sanitized news, distorted facts, and played on emotions. Creel extolled transparency but established front organizations. Overseas, the CPI secretly subsidized news organs and bribed journalists. At home, it challenged the loyalty of those who occasionally questioned its tactics. Working closely with federal intelligence agencies eager to sniff out subversives and stifle dissent, the CPI was an accomplice to the Wilson administration’s trampling of civil liberties. Until now, the full story of the CPI has never been told. John Maxwell Hamilton consulted over 150 archival collections in the United States and Europe to write this revealing history, which shows the shortcuts to open, honest debate that even well-meaning propagandists take to bend others to their views. Every element of contemporary government propaganda has antecedents in the CPI. It is the ideal vehicle for understanding the rise of propaganda, its methods of operation, and the threat it poses to democracy.
$800 REWARD FOR THE ARREST & CONVICTION OF THE LEEDS GANG!Enter a Turn of the 20th Century World of Ruthlessness, Railroads, Robbers,Rebels & Rogues . . .
This groundbreaking work tells the true story behind Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 reelection, drawing upon never-before-published personal files to expose a nexus of patronage and power that changed America forever. FDR's 1936 reelection represented his greatest political triumph. Yet the election remains largely unstudied despite the fact that critical decisions by some of the most colorful—and controversial—characters in American history make it one of the most significant ever to take place. This landmark work, the first specifically about the 1936 election, highlights the key debates, events, and personalities that epitomized the conflicted, highly charged politics of the New Deal era. In telling its gripping tale, the book discloses the secret history of Roosevelt's New Deal. It uncovers the hidden roles that money, patronage, and power played in the campaign of 1936, underscoring the transition from the old-school politics of stump-speaking and glad-handing to a new world of professionalism marked by scientific polling, targeted advertising, and direct media. The book offers a new perspective on this critical period in American history through its use of previously unpublished private correspondence and internal memos from key players in the Roosevelt administration as well as from GOP chairman John Hamilton. These archival sources detail the nuts and bolts of running a presidential campaign during the Great Depression and reveal how money was manipulated to buy votes. Exposing the true story behind the making of modern America, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in FDR, U.S. history, politics, or the presidency.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italian Renaissance art, objects, and even the idea of Italy itself figured heavily both in the dynamic international art market and in the eyes of the general public. The alternative objects that were actively dispersed and collected -- authentic works, pastiches, Renaissance-inspired counterfeits, and reproductions -- in the diverse media of paint, plaster, terracotta, and photography, had a tremendous impact on visual culture across social strata. These essays examine less studied aspects of this market through the lens of just a few of the countless successful sales of objects out of Italy.
The wild, combative inside story of the most stunning upset in the history of presidential elections—Harry Truman's victory over Tom Dewey: “Outstanding.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune In this lively account, award-winning historian David Pietrusza unpacks the most ingloriously iconic headline in the history of presidential elections—DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN—to reveal the 1948 campaign's backstage events and recount the down-to-the-wire brawl fought against the background of an erupting Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the birth of Israel, and a post-war America facing exploding storms over civil rights and domestic communism. “Coherent, compelling…A skillful, authoritative investigation.”—Kirkus Reviews “A terrific book…a must-read.”—Ron Faucheux, former editor-in-chief, Campaigns & Elections magazine “Brilliantly portrays President Harry Truman's successful efforts to stave off the challenge of New York Gov. Tom Dewey, who was making a repeat bid as the Republican nominee.”—David Mark, author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning “Sweeping…compelling.”—Library Journal “Gripping detail.”—The New York Journal of Books
Like most cities during Prohibition, Kansas City had illegal alcohol, bootleggers, speakeasies, cops on the take, corrupt politicians and moralizing reformers. But by the time the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, Kansas City had been singled out by one observer as one of the wettest cities, as well as the wickedest. A grocer managed a still in the basement of his store. A raid on the Tingle Oil Company found two hundred drums of oil and the largest illegal brewery ever found in the state. This seedy underworld transformed the Heart of America into the Paris of the Plains. Author John Simonson resurrects forgotten stories by revisiting places where they occurred and telling the salacious history of booze in Kansas City.
When Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opened to the public in 1933, it was viewed as a miracle, an oasis of culture in a Midwestern town whose image was still largely one of cowboys and steaks. In an engaging style, Kristie Wolferman tells the history of the Nelson-Atkins from its founding to the present day, a fascinating combination of people, events, and circumstances that culminated in an art museum that now holds its own among the finest in the world. Wolferman begins by relaying how the trustees of the estates of the reclusive widow Mary Atkins and the family of Kansas City Star newspaper editor William Rockhill Nelson joined forces to establish a museum from scratch, then goes on to consider all of the highly talented people who directed and staffed the Nelson-Atkins along the way, their efforts resulting in many bold innovations, among them new collections, grounds, and educational programs and offerings. With 100 color and black and white photographs, this book will be treasured by all who love and admire this remarkable institution, one that attracts half a million visitors—from across the city, state, nation, and world—each year. This is a co-publication of the University of Missouri Press and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
In the summer of 1917, Ernest Hemingway was an 18-year-old high school graduate unsure of his future. The American entry in the Great War stirred thoughts of joining the army. While many of his friends in Oak Park, Illinois, were heading to college, Hemingway couldn't make up his mind, and eventually chose to begin a career in writing and journalism at one of the great newspapers of its day, the Kansas City Star. In six and a half months, Hemingway experienced a compressed, streetwise alternative to a college education, which opened his eyes to urban violence, the power of literature, the hard work of writing, and a constantly swirling stage of human comedy and drama. The Kansas City experience led Hemingway into the Red Cross ambulance service in Italy, where, two weeks before his 19th birthday, he was dangerously wounded at the front. Award-winning writer Steve Paul takes a measure of these experiences that transformed Hemingway from a "modest, rather shy and diffident boy" to a young man who was increasingly occupied by recording the truth as he saw it of crime, graft, exotic temptations, violence, and war. Hemingway at Eighteen sheds new light on this young man bound for greatness and a writer at the very beginning of his journey.
