The Newsroom

August 8, 2008
Q&A with Herbert Gans, author of Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together after Bush

Herbert Gans is one of the most influential and prolific sociologists and social commentators of our time. He is the author of Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together after Bush.

Part utopia, part realism, Imagining America is set mostly in the second and third decades of the century. It offers a set of progressive yet practical guidelines for restoring sanity and intelligence to nearly every aspect of life post-Bush.

In Gans's imagined future, elected officials, policymakers, activists, and citizens have transformed America into a much more humane and effective democracy. The book features three Democratic presidents; the major new domestic, foreign, and social policies their administrations pursue; and the political battles they fight.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

The University of Michigan Press: What is your book about?

Herbert Gans: It is a portrait of an achievable better society, and one that suggests fixes for the political, economic, and other missteps and mistakes that the country's political and economic leaders—and voters—have made since the beginning of the Reagan era.

It is also a book that describes some new and familiar but yet untried public policies and political strategies for a variety of fields, from domestic and foreign affairs to world peace, global warming and energy use, inequality reduction, family life, housing and community planning, education and the democratization of politics as well as the economy. All are intended to get the country on the right track.

UMP: Why this book now? What was your inspiration for writing it?

HG: Many years ago, in high school or college, I read Edward Bellamy's 1887 utopia, Looking Backward and was much impressed by his portrait of Boston in the year 2000 as an egalitarian, pleasant, comfortable, and cultured community. It was also an impossible community: the economy was run by an industrial army in which everyone served but only for a few years, resources for public and private initiatives were unlimited, everyone agreed about every issue so conflict was absent, politics was unnecessary, and the community was ruled by a council of wise elders. Consequently I thought I would someday write a realistic utopia, describing a better society but one in which scarcities, disagreements, inequality, ugly politics, and other of the realities humans actually live with remain and have to be dealt with.

Bellamy wrote mostly about what America was like in 2000 and said comparatively little about how it got there; I wanted to describe a process of betterment. More important, I wanted to write a book that could be read as a commentary on today's America and that allowed me to describe some of the policies and politics needed now. Readers who are more concerned with the present should feel free to ignore 2033 and other dates, imagine the policies and politics in a contemporary setting, and think about them accordingly.

UMP: You call the book a "realistic utopia" and its title page describes it as a "utopian narrative." Tell us more.

HG: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, utopias are, among other things, perfect societies or impossibly ideal ones. I go with the latter definition though I would put the word "unachievable" after ideal. A realistic utopia, although literally oxymoronic, portrays a society that is considerably better than the current one but is achievable through current forms of policy making and democratic political reform.

Describing the book as a utopian narrative signifies that although it is about an imagined society and is thus literally a fiction, it is not the work of a novelist. Instead, it is the work of a social scientist and planner who has combined analysis and imagination. At one point I thought of calling it a policy fiction. I suppose a narrative is something somewhere between non fiction and fiction. Still, readers should be free to ignore 2033 and other future years and treat it as a book about today's America.

UMP: What does a good utopian narrative do?

HG: I can't answer this one; this is what the literary critics write about though I notice that while they bewail the scarcity of utopias they do not produce any. In fact, just about all writing about the imagined future these days is dystopian and has been for a long time; one horror story after another and a further reason I wanted to write this book.

UMP: : From the subtitle alone—"How the Country Put Itself Together after Bush—it sounds like you don't think much of the Bush II administration.

HG: No, but I am hardly alone in thinking that Bush has been the country's most disastrous president and that he and his crew have badly damaged the country in a number of ways. Still, it is not a major point of my book—and so many books offering that critique are being published all the time—Bush's former press secretary's as I write this. I would not have ended up with a very different book had I begun and finished it during the Clinton years.

UMP: Would any of the major events that occurred after your book came out—the economics of petroleum-based society, the housing and credit crises—have changed the course of how your book was written? Or would they have?

HG: The book would not have changed. Several chapters deal with the various energy, climate and other environmental crises—somewhere I mention $8-10 a gallon gasoline. The current housing crunch is mentioned but I think of it as a temporary bubble (perhaps to be followed by other bubbles later). There's a more important phenomenon that should have received more attention in the book: the ever greater power of speculators (hedge funds is the polite term) in the economy.

UMP: Are there some aspects of human culture or society that you believe will never fundamentally change, no matter what political winds are blowing? Things like power and its acquisitions, money, economic inequality?

HG: As long as needed resources are scarce, people will fight over them, through politics or with force. And as long as they get differential shares of those resources and occupy different positions in the hierarchical society that results, their values and expectations will differ, which adds further to the likelihood that they will fight for theirs and against those of other people—especially those they can dehumanize as foreigners, pagans, unworthy, subhumans, elitists, the great unwashed, etc.

UMP: Do you subscribe to the idea that humankind generally—even taking into account the ebbs and flows—is a species that continually improves itself? Meaning are we more or less always getting better or improving ourselves, or is it two steps forward and three back?

HG: We are told that as a species, humankind is eventually likely to be replaced by cockroaches. Meanwhile, some people and institutions bring about improvement, at the moment in the medical science and other natural sciences (although too many are also perfecting more efficient killing instruments). However, others—especially the Western European democracies—have created societies that are politically and economically more civilized than the U.S. (except in their treatment of dark skinned immigrants). But even as humans are getting technically smarter if not morally wiser, they are still puny animals who are no match for the colossus we call Mother Nature; all it takes are some earthquakes, a long lasting famine, a tsunami, some hurricanes or tornados or the widespread flooding predicted when too much of the Earth's ice has melted for the few steps forward to be followed by many backwards. Genocides can still claim humongous numbers of victims but wars seem no longer to kill as many people as tsunamis, which is progress. (There's a whole chapter, No 3, much of which is devoted to the prevention of war and global disaster.)

UMP: What are some of the scenarios in your book that you think may be more than utopian but actually implementable in the future?

HG: The book is always a realistic utopia, and thus not a standard utopia populated by angelic humans realizing unachievable dreams. I tried very hard and very deliberately to limit myself to implementable scenarios and there are no economic, political and technological dei ex machina in the book.

UMP: There's been some talk in the last few years about the end of the American era, so to speak. Even some talk about the end—or at least the decline of—the era of robust economies because of the rise in fuel costs due to demand, speculation, and "Peak Oil"; the globalized economy; and the seemingly global credit crunch brought on in part by the subprime meltdown. What's your take on that? Is the American period in some state of decline?

HG: I did not think in terms of an American era, and since the long term economic downturn that began in the 1970s, there has been such an era only militarily which still persists as long as we wage unnecessary wars and spend as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. Standards of living are hard to measure but several countries, mostly in W Europe outrank us in the standard obtainable by their middle class or median income populations. Many have also virtually eliminated poverty—but they have used government to achieve progress while regulating private enterprise sufficiently to prevent it from sabotaging policies for a better life for ordinary people.

But perhaps a more important question to ask is, how can there be an American era when the Chinese are already lending us the money to keep our standard of living from declining further and the Saudis and a few others can decide whether to supply us with enough oil to enable the society to operate?

UMP: What are some issues or subjects that you think might prove to be very important in years to come but that are perhaps "flying under the radar" at present?

HG: That's a question for futurists, a profession that tries to predict the future, which I do not—my job has been to imagine it. Also, I am more worried about issues that are above the radar but that neither our economic nor political decision-makers—or the voters—are yet ready to confront; e.g. the growing economic inequality in the US and in the world which can only spur further political conflict and violence. Also, the climatic and other emergencies which will eventually require a quick end to the excessive dependence on oil and on other global warming producing processes. That's one reason that long range planning and what I think I called a Council of Long Range Advisers show up in the book.

UMP: Do you have a favorite utopian book yourself (even if things don't necessarily work out for the better in the book!)?

HG: I retain a qualified fondness for Bellamy's Looking Backward, and also for Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia, published in 1975, about the American Northwest's secession from the rest of the country in order to create what would now be called a completely green economy and society. It's as close to an almost realistic utopia as I have read.

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Read more about Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together after Bush at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=226276.

July 9, 2008
Q&A with Mardi Link, author of When Evil Came to Good Hart

In the summer of 1968, in a sleepy northern Michigan resort town, a suburban-Detroit family was found shot dead in their cabin. Forty years later, the murders remain unsolved and the case has grown cold.

The search for who killed the Robison family stretched from Michigan to Florida, Alabama, and Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Dozens of investigators took up the case. The murders even inspired a novel. Yet few have gotten as close to the story as Mardi Link, author of When Evil Came to Good Hart.

Link's page-turning tale collects 40 years of evidence into a riveting true-crime story. She crafts her book around police and court documents as well as statements and interviews, and explores the impact of the case on the community of Good Hart.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

The University of Michigan Press: Why did you decide to write about the Robison family murders now? It's really a riveting story, but on the other hand, so much time has gone by and the case has been so thoroughly investigated.

Mardi Link: I've been following this case since I was seven years old and heard the crime announced on the radio when I was headed up north with my parents. I had a thick file on the case before I ever considered writing about it. Recently, I knew that the 40th anniversary was coming up and so I looked into the case again to see if it had been solved and to see if I could find out anything else about the investigation. I saw that it wasn't, and so I looked for a book about it but found that there wasn't one. No non-fiction book anyway, only a novel. Essentially, I think now looking back on the process that I wrote the book I wanted to read.

UMP: What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

ML: A better idea of the complexity of this case and why it was never officially solved. A respect for the Michigan State Police and for the present day Emmet County Sheriff's Office. An inside and interesting look at one of Michigan's most famous murder investigations that took place in one of the state's loveliest areas.

UMP: When Evil Came to Good Hart begins with a quote from author Karen Halttunen's book Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination, as to whether evil is a supernatural power engaged in a struggle with the forces of good or do bad things happen at random in an amoral universe. That's an interesting quote to begin a true-crime story with. Why did you choose that passage from Halttunen's book?

ML: I think that's the question I was trying to answer when I started researching this case and I think that's the question readers of true crime literature in general are trying to answer for themselves, too. Anyone who has ever been interested in the Robison family murders ultimately can't help but asking, "Why?" Financial gain just doesn't seem like it could possibly be the only motive for such a horrific display of violence against an entire family. It's almost as if there must have been some darker forces at work. I think Karen Halttunen's quote captured that feeling.

UMP: What in your opinion are some of the stranger or perhaps more fascinating aspects of either the crime or the investigation?

ML: Thousands of people are murdered every year in Michigan, and only a handful of these crimes pass from the front page of the newspaper into legend. The Robison case is one of these because of a number of compelling factors. The place where the crime was committed is so geographically remote, yet so naturally beautiful that it's difficult to believe anything bad could ever happen there. The man who police believe was the main target of the crime, Richard Robison, was a complex mix of ego, genius, and psychosis. The chief suspect was a gun expert and an interesting character in his own right. And, the number of amateur sleuths obsessed with this case from novelists to aging newspaper reporters to childhood friends of the victims, to mentally disturbed correspondents have added another layer of drama to an already fascinating case. Ask just about anyone who lived in Michigan in 1968 if they remember this case, and many, many people will say that they not only remember it, but still think about it today.

UMP: Even though the forensic abilities back in 1968 don't compare to the kind of tools we have available for the investigation of crimes today, do you think that the way the crime scene was handled initially may have disturbed any evidence?

ML: When I spoke with Sheriff Pete Wallin who is the current Sheriff of Emmet County, he said with certainty that if this crime had happened today, it would be solved. I think he's probably right on that. I also think the crime could have been solved in 1968 if Sheriff Zink hadn't been on vacation. And if Undersheriff Fosmore hadn't ruined any evidence that might have been on the bloody hammer they found at the scene by picking it up, and if so many curious law enforcement officers and onlookers hadn't been allowed to walk through the crime scene. The case might also have been solved if Prosecutor Noggle had been willing to arrest Joe Scolaro on the evidence he did have, and get him on the stand during a trial. Of course, that's all conjecture, because Zink was on vacation, the crime scene was disturbed and Scolaro was never arrested for the crime and no trial ever took place. A lot of factors contributed to the case going cold.

UMP: Do you have an opinion as to who committed the murders?

ML: After picking through a thousand pages of the State Police report, the DVD Emmet County has on the case, the crime scene photos, and then interviewing more than fifty people, I think Scolaro, Richard Robison's business associate, planned the murder and participated in it. He may have acted alone or he may have had help, but the guilt lies with him either way.

UMP: During the investigation, you write that Dick Robson exchanged 17 phone calls with Joe Scolaro (Richard Robison's business associate and the No. 1 suspect) between Robison's conversation with his banker in the morning of June 25, 1968 and his murder later that day. Were these phone calls verified to provide an alibi for Joe Scolaro that he was nowhere near the crime scene when it happened?

ML: I think those calls come closer to proving Scolaro's guilt than his innocence. Though we can never know the exact nature of the conversation that took place between Dick Robison and Joe Scolaro in those phone calls, we do know that Dick also talked to his banker that same morning in between the calls with Scolaro and found out that money was missing from his company account. A lot of money. I believe Dick confronted Joe in those phone calls. The last of them ended mid-morning and neighbors of the Robison's cottage in Good Hart say they heard shots at about 9 p.m. that night. They thought it was kids shooting at seagulls. Joe had enough time to hang up the phone, get out of Detroit, and drive to Good Hart. No one in Detroit remembers seeing Joe for that entire day, even though he said he attended a busy plumbing convention and talked to clients. He has no alibi.

UMP: Any opinion about the strange charges brought by John Clock, the reporter for the Petoskey News, that Monnie Bliss of Good Hart may have committed the murders to cover up the knowledge by the Robisons that Bliss has murdered his own son? It seems so out of left field and so far-fetched.

ML: One interesting aspect of the case is how doggedly the people who believe Monnie Bliss was the murderer continue to cling to that idea, regardless of the hard evidence that negates it. Monnie was a woodsman; an intelligent, quirky, resourceful northern Michigan woodsman more comfortable with nature than people. Good Hart locals who knew him said that he slept little, knew how to fix or build just about anything, and that he had an odd way of narrating everything he did, out loud, as he was going about his day. He could be awkward in public and John Clock's theory sprung from some weird statements Monnie made the day of the crime and months afterward. I don't believe there was anything sinister about Monnie; he was just an unusual character whom outsiders didn't understand. Clock was an outsider. Monnie passed a lie detector test, did not own guns anything like the ones that killed the Robisons’ and from all reports was a devoted father. I don't believe he could have killed anyone. His one beef with Dick Robison, as a matter of fact, was that Robison was too hard on his own four children.

UMP: What do you think of the Leavenworth lead and the car with Shirley Robison's luggage tag in it? Do you think that Joe Scolaro paid Mark Brock to kill the family, and that Mr. Bloxom was an accomplice?

ML: I think there may be something to the Leavenworth lead, and that Shirley's luggage tag ending up in the glove box of an abandoned car a decade after the murders is just another mystery that will probably never be explained in this complicated case. If Scolaro did hire someone to kill the Robisons, or to help him kill the Robisons, the Detroit bank robbers, one of which ended up in Leavenworth Prison, are likely accomplices. Police discounted Bloxom's story because he failed a lie detector test. Perhaps he was only lying about his guilt in the bank robbery and telling the truth about his involvement with the Robison murders. He sure had a lot of accurate details about the case for someone who was supposedly lying.

UMP: What do you think of the theory that John Norman Collins, the "Michigan Murderer," was involved in or responsible for the murders?

ML: Not much. It makes page-turning fiction, but doesn't have any basis in fact. His victims were all young women in the Ann Arbor area. Totally different M.O. Plus, there's no evidence that he was ever at the Good Hart cottage.

UMP: After this much time, and even with modern state-of-the-art forensic tools, it seems unlikely that the murders will ever be solved. Do you believe that the murderer or murderers will ever be caught?

ML: I think it's possible that there will someday be enough evidence to close the case. The murderer or murderers won't be caught in this world because one or all of them are already dead, Scolaro by his own hand. Perhaps they're facing justice in the next world, who can know? I do believe that there are people still living who know pieces of information that could be helpful to detectives. Perhaps they don't even know it, or perhaps they are ashamed of their complicity, or just want to put it in the past. I think new details could still come to light. Maybe the press surrounding the 40th anniversary of the crime will inspire them to come forward.

UMP: If anyone has a tip they think might be useful, whom should they contact?

ML: The Emmet County Sheriff's Office at (231) 439-8900. Ask for either Sheriff Pete Wallin or Detective J.L. Sumpter.

Read more about When Evil Came to Good Hart at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=318045.

June 18, 2008
Where Do the Children Play? Wins Emmys

Where Do the Children Play?, a Michigan Television documentary distributed by the University of Michigan Press, has been awarded 5 regional Emmy Awards.

Emmys were awarded to Where Do the Children Play? in the following categories:

• Health/Science - Program/Special
• Documentary - Topical
• Writer - Program
• Advance Media - Photographer
• Advance Media - Writer/Producer

Read more about the documentary Where Do the Children Play? and the Companion Volume to the documentary A Place for Play edited by Elizabeth Goodenough.

June 10, 2008
Q&A with Jim Rossignol, author of This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities

Part personal history, part travel narrative, part philosophical reflection on the meaning of games, This Gaming Life describes Rossignol's encounters with gamers in three unique gaming cities: London, Seoul, and Reykjavik. From his days as a Quake genius in London's increasingly corporate gaming culture, to his encounters with Korea's high stakes, televised professional gaming milieu to his adventures in Iceland, the national home of his ultimate obsession, the idiosyncratic and beguiling Eve Online, Rossignol introduces us to a still-emerging and largely undocumented world of gaming lives.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

University of Michigan Press: Why did you write this book? How does This Gaming Life add to the conversation, and what is happening in the world that makes your book particularly relevant?

Jim Rossignol: Videogames are incredibly important to a large section of my generation. They're incredibly important to me. They've changed people's lives, and my motivation is as simple as that: they changed my life and I've been writing about that for years.

Games have provided much of the cultural backdrop to our lives, and have the same emotional resonance as movies, novels, or music for the people who play them. In the past decade I'd heard people talking about events relating to videogames that were "defining experiences" in their lives, just as we regularly hear people talking about a book, record, or lecturer having changed their life. Recording some of this, and describing some of what it is that makes games such interesting entities is what This Gaming Life is all about.

UMP: Why did you choose London, Seoul, and Reykjavik? How do these cities fit into the current gaming climate?

JR: Those three cities are important for me personally. They're landmarks in my own gaming experience. London is the city I've had most experience of first hand, partly because I live in the UK, and partly many of the gamers I know personally live there. Much of what I've talked about in terms of games changing individual lives stems from London.

Seoul was important because it's home to a gaming culture that is quite different to the one found in the West: a kind of competitive, social sporting culture of videogames, where the same videogames found in the West have quite a different status. There are five TV channels dedicated to videogames, that kind of thing. Examining that and looking at how gaming is global and yet provincially reinterpreted was essential to fleshing out how it is that gaming changes cultures, as well as individuals.

Reykjavik is the home of my pet subject, Eve Online. This is a massive multiplayer videogame quite unlike anything else currently on the market. Its esoteric nature makes for some esoteric players, and some unusual player-projects. I used the meetings I had in Iceland to illustrated how games and gamers have entered a kind of symbiotic state, with games evolving to suit the tastes and personal projects of the gamers who play them.

UMP: There’s a term being used for some of the writing about games: "New Games Journalism"? Is that how you'd describe your writing about games, and if so, what is new games journalism?

JR: This is a difficult topic for me, because the "New Games Journalism" idea became something of a joke within the gaming community. The arguments that it spawned were sprawling and vitriolic, and usually fueled the belief that Kieron Gillen, who coined the phrase, was being enormously pretentious. The heart of the matter, however, lies with the fact that games journalism has been unfairly dominated by a product-orientated marketing ecology, which is based on the preview/review model of consumer guide journalism. Gillen argued that games writing simply needed to become free to explore other modes, just as the New Journalism of the 1960s had encouraged techniques that seemed unconventional at the time. He was right, of course, and we've seen plenty of writing that breaks the review/preview mould both before and since Gillen penned his manifesto. I'm sure I'll get dragged over the coals for suggesting that I'd written a book of New Games Journalism, but by Gillen's definition that's probably what it is.

UMP: Do you have to field a lot of questions about why you spend (or spent) so much time on games, when you could have been spending it on something more "constructive"? And if you do get a lot of these kinds of questions (from non-gamers, I’m guessing) how do you answer them?

JR: Actually non gamers tend to express little more than disbelief or surprise when they find out how I live. There's occasionally a sense of amazement that I could spend so much time doing any one thing, but then the same sort of attitude would probably be brought to bear on people who spent the same amount of time gardening or reading comics. Ultimately, my writing about games pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head, and everybody understands that.

UMP: You write that what's most important to your analysis is "the fact of video games' ambiguous social value: they're beloved by gamers and derided or dismissed by the uninitiated." Why do you think this is the case?

JR: People have trouble dealing with change, and videogames are all about change. I think that's the fundamental problem. Not only are games radically different to literature or TV, they're evolving rapidly. That's hard to digest, or to keep up with, and for a while there were the domain of fast-learning kids or dedicated geeks. But there's also something deeper going on: our cultural value judgments with regards to leisure and entertainment. Videogames are tied to the idea of play, and play is still devalued against money-making work, or practical transferable skill-imbuing education. Play for its own sake is still tainted with a notion of idleness that is like a sin when viewed via traditional puritanical work ethics. I think we receive certain values like this and don't even question them, even if we don't adhere to them. Gamers, when questioned, will usually say that they should be reading a book rather than playing a videogame, and yet few of them have ever taken the time to quantify why they "should" be reading, or what value that actually would have for them.

Ultimately, as I think some of the cases in my book illustrate, games are good as part of a balanced cultural diet. And that metaphor goes a long way: you need a mix of foodgroups and exercise regimes to be physically healthy, and you benefit from a mix of cultural and intellectual experiences to maintain a balanced mind. I fully expect that games will be seen as necessary to agile thought within a couple of generations.

UMP: Why do games have to struggle for the same status of “art” as other media? Is it a case of the new kid on the block threatening the well-established neighborhood?

JR: Absolutely, it's the same for generation after generation of new media. However, there's a lot to be said for the value of games as a purely pulp medium. Some games are art, no doubt, but I think we'd suffer if they were all reaching for the stars.

UMP: You write that games change gamers’ brains for the better. What empirical evidence is there to support that? And how have things changed in that regard even since you wrote your book? Have more studies been done?

JR: The cognitive neuroscience of videogames is a remarkably well documented area for research, and numerous scientific papers have shown how gameplay can improve hand-eye co-ordination or visual and spatial comprehension. This research is ongoing, but it seems to show that certain faculties of the brain do benefit from "exercise" via videogames. However, most of these studies take place using very simple arcade action games, which account for only a small amount of gaming today. Games are remarkably sophisticated - often demonstrated quite complex decision making. It's the effects of long-term exposure to these games, and to more social games, that I think is most interesting. Clearly, what we need are larger, long-term studies of how complex, social games and long-term internet use effect the brain. My subjective feelings about these effects generally are positive, but it's clear that more scientific work is needed in that area. (Full of useful references: )www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/daphne/TCN_of_VGP.pdf

UMP: Can you think of an "old-fashioned" game (non-video/electronic/computer) that could be a parallel to how video games help people learn? In other words, is there another game out there that, by way of analogy, has historically provided similar learning opportunities?

JR: I play Scrabble almost every night with my girlfriend. We sit with a dictionary next to us, and regularly learn new words: that's something you only see a limited amount of electronic gaming. However, videogames as a medium have exploded what it means to be a game. Games are so diverse now that the parallel is probably found less in old fashioned games, and more in activities unrelated to the traditional notion of a game. The subset of games made up by board games, or card games, say, is tiny compared to what now constitutes a game in the electronic medium. The best comparison, then, is probably either to sports, in which we learn by focusing on a particular physical discipline, or pen and paper role-playing, where mathematics, acting, descriptive writing, and socialising all factor into play. What I learned playing Eve Online was more like running a company, or getting involved in feudal politics, than playing any traditional game.

UMP: You write that "what is most valuable to me about computerized play is the fact that it offers new and far greater possibilities for being entertained." This seems to go against the more upright idea that games enrich us mentally. Can you expand on this a bit?

JR: I'm afraid this is the truth of my personal hedonism coming through. I was once asked what I'd like written on my gravestone, and I think "He Was Entertained" would do nicely, as long as it was true! I think there is value in simply enjoying life, and being entertained. I don't think every sedentary activity we value should be edification via education or intellectual enrichment: enjoying life because it is thrilling, spectacular, and beautiful is also important. We must not lose sight of the fact that the primary, driving force of videogames is their capacity to entertain people. Videogames deliver rather more visceral experiences brilliantly, and we need to understand that this is just as valuable as their potential to make us faster or smarter.

UMP: Then of course, there's boredom, a thing that games help to alleviate. Can you talk a little about boredom and how games relate to this often overlooked human malady?

JR: Boredom, as I discuss in the book, has much in common with videogames. It's readily dismissed, for one thing, but the connections run a little deeper. I think that videogames, like much of modern entertainment culture, represents a sophisticated response to the conditions of modern life, the conditions that have made boredom into one of the great unmentionables of the last two hundred years.

It's telling that word itself has increased dramatically in use since its appearance in the 20th century: the very concept is in tandem with modernity. Increased leisure time and increased disposable income seems to necessarily lead to boredom, at least for a certain kind of people: usually the ones who aren't workaholics, which is most people. For those who are utterly focused on work or family, the idea of boredom is almost incomprehensible, but the closer you look, the more intense the idea becomes. New experiences, it seems, are the best way to combat boredom: hence the explosion in tourism, and the rise of videogames. As travel becomes more and more expensive in the coming decades, I expect to see people relying more and more on their virtual excursions for relief.

UMP: Everyone experiences boredom, but is there a generational thing going on with games? In other words, is gaming mostly for—or played by—the young, those who grew up with computers?

JR: More and more older people are discovering electronic gaming, but there is a massive difference in skills and perceptions between those who grew up with gaming, and those who did not. It comes down to the tiniest things, like being able to navigate a menu screen proficiently. I've seen people of my parent's generation simply not understand a scrolling menu. The interface is the most difficult boundary—which is one of the reasons the Wii has been so successful. Hand someone a button-encrusted gamepad and they freeze up: you might as well have handed them a loaded pistol.

UMP: What do you see as some future scenarios for the world of gaming? How are things evolving?

JR: Game is going to become ubiquitous in culture, to the point where it's as widely proliferated as TV screens are now. Coming generations will expect to be able to play and interact with everything, and to be able to call up their library of entertainments as easily as we call up a collection of MP3s on an ipod today. Exponential storage capacity alone will mean that in twenty years we'll be able to carry around all the games ever made on a keyring. Hopefully games still have some revolutions in gameplay design to undergo too: there's too much recycled material at present. We need—and will get—some major innovations that we can't even imagine today.

Read more about This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=293023.

May 6, 2008
Q&A with Dave Dempsey, author of Great Lakes for Sale: From Whitecaps to Bottlecaps

Renowned environmental writer Dave Dempsey is the author of Great Lakes for Sale: From Whitecaps to Bottlecaps, a must-read book about water, one of the most—perhaps the most—precious natural resources.

This is a book for anyone interested in saving the Great Lakes, a huge fresh-water system that contains about 25 percent of the world's fresh surface water. The book asks—and answers—important questions about the export and diversion of Great Lakes water. Not only does Great Lakes for Sale examine past and present water-diversion practices; it also shows readers what they can do to save this natural resource.

Great Lakes for Sale is an important part of the effort to remind people why commercialization of Great Lakes water is a dangerous threat. It's not simply a matter of how much water in the short term is removed; the long-term threat is control of water and the possibility that non-Great Lakes interests will assert ownership of the very substance of the Great Lakes.

Here, Dave Dempsey answers questions about his book and water issues in the Great Lakes.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

University of Michigan Press: Please give us some background on why you wrote this book. Why now, and how does it add to the conversation?

Dave Dempsey: I wrote it out of a passion for the Great Lakes, which are dear to me as a native Michiganian, and the sense that they are now facing a largely unseen danger – commercialization. The reason I wrote it now is that the decisions on who controls or owns Great Lakes water are being made now and in the next few years.

UMP: Why has Michigan been so vocal about water diversion from the Great lakes and yet so bad at enacting water conservation laws for itself for so long?

DD: Because it's easy to tell others to conserve but harder to practice.

UMP: In the past (and still today), there was a lot of talk and publicity about pollution in the Great Lakes. Is pollution still a threat to the Great Lakes? Between pollution and diversion, which might ultimately have the greater impact?

DD: Pollution, both old and new, is a major threat to the Great Lakes. The latest troubling problem is the interaction of alien species like quagga mussels and phosphorus, which is promoting ugly algae blooms. Persistent chemical contamination is also a profound concern. I'd say commercialization (or diversion) is the greater threat because once privatized, Great Lakes water is going to be harder for us to clean up.

UMP: Anybody simply observing lake levels—both of the Great Lakes and inland waters—would probably have noticed in recent years that water levels are quite low. What do you think is the reason (or reasons) for the low levels of the Great Lakes and even the inland lakes over past several years?

DD: I wouldn't read too much into the recent low lake levels. They could well be part of a long-term cycle related to normal climate fluctuations. Ask me in 20 years what the levels of the Great Lakes mean then and I can tell you whether climate change or overuse are contributing.

UMP: What kind of impact do bottled water companies have on the Great Lakes? Could a company such as Nestle Waters North America really lower the lake levels? (Or the level of the lake or body of water from which it pumps water?)

DD: Nestle-style operations have been found to lower lakes, streams and wetlands in the areas they operate. And while it may seem inconceivable to some that 'mere humans' could affect the levels of the mammoth Great Lakes, over time ingenious and sometimes reckless humankind has shown it is fully capable of altering the Lakes. One straw in the lakes may not be much, but a thousand straws will lower them.

UMP: Do bottled-water companies (wherever they're located) pay for the water they pump out? Is there some kind of per-gallon or per-cubic-foot charge they pay?

DD: Bottled-water companies that get their water from springs or streams pay nothing to the public for the resource. Those that bottle tap water – and that's about 25% of the market – do pay their municipal utilities, but at a fraction of the retail price they charge.

UMP: What do you say to the argument that fresh water belongs to everyone, and thus the water of the Great Lakes shouldn't just be kept within the confines of the Great Lakes states? That is, if the water in the Great Lakes could benefit other Americans such as those living in Arizona, why not send it there, then?

DD: Fresh water does belong to everyone – and except in the case of a humanitarian crisis, it also belongs where it is. History shows that our manipulation of the movements of water leads to unforeseen disasters. Other Americans, including those in Arizona, are welcome to move here and use the water. If they do, most of that water will remain in the Great Lakes. Let's not water desert golf courses with Great Lakes resources.

UMP: You say that the Great Lakes are in danger in an era of globalization and commercialization. What do you mean by that?

DD: The cliché is that water is the oil of the 21st Century. That means a lot of greedy parties are trying to figure out how to turn the Great Lakes into a product they can market and sell, and our trade agreements open the door to that.

UMP: Can you explain the difference between water use and water ownership?

DD: It's analogous to the difference between using soil to grow crops, and mining the soil, putting it into bags and exporting it hundreds of miles away. There is a longstanding legal right of those who live over aquifers or along streams to use water reasonably. There is also a longstanding legal doctrine that says the public owns said water and it can't be privatized.

UMP: Please explain in laymen's terms the body of law known as the public trust doctrine, and how this impacts decisions we make about Great lakes water.

DD: The public trust doctrine reaches back to the Roman empire. It essentially says that some natural resources are so precious they are the common heritage of humankind. Water, the source of life, is one of those. By adhering to the doctrine, the people (through their governments) can assure Great Lakes water is accessible to all now and in the future – not hoarded and owned and sold by giant special interests.

UMP: How does whether water is on the surface or below ground affect water usage issues in the Great Lakes?

DD: About 50% of the flow of the Great Lakes comes from groundwater, so springs and rivers both play a critical role in the level of the Great Lakes.

UMP: We've seen some headlines about a report by the CDC that talks about toxins in the Great Lakes. Have you heard about that, and, if so, what have you heard and what does it mean?

DD: I'm well aware of it. I think people should be more alarmed about the withholding of the report and associated secrecy than about what's in the report. It's time governments stopped treating the public as children who can't handle sensitive information. All the study says is this: some human health problems are worse in communities close to Great Lakes toxic hotspots, and we need to do more research to know if there's a connection.

UMP: Please outline where we stand today in terms of water diversion from the Great Lakes. Are we on the verge of selling our watery souls, so to speak, to the highest bidder?

DD: I'm optimistic we're on the verge of saving the Great Lakes for ourselves and humanity for all time. I hope the book helps wake people up to the danger we're facing and the opportunity that's presented. The only way we'll lose the lakes to the highest bidder is through ignorance or apathy.

Read more about Great Lakes for Sale: From Whitecaps to Bottlecaps at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=269167

April 17, 2008
Q&A with Michael Lewis-Beck, co-author of The American Voter Revisited

Michael S. Lewis-Beck is the co-author, along with William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth, and Herbert F. Weisberg, of The American Voter Revisited. We sat down with Michael to talk about the book.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

University of Michigan Press: Why was the original book written? Was there something unique or special about the 1952 and 1956 elections?

Michael Lewis-Beck: The book, by the now renowned team of Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, came out of a growing dissatisfaction with how elections were analyzed by pundits and scholars. Discussions in the media would use anecdotes, stories, or tidbits of facts to explain why people voted the way they did. There was a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking. Scholars would look at patterns of election returns in the states, or describe accounts give by politicians. It was all guess work, since no one really knew anything about individual voters, and how they thought and acted. That was the big break through of The American Voter, the research systematically talked to real voters, and in more than one election.

The 1952 and 1956 elections offered a unique opportunity, as the first massive scientific public opinion surveys of individual American voters to become available. These surveys were the fodder for this seminal study.

UMP: That represents the history of the original. What then was your motivation or inspiration for writing The American Voter Revisited?

MLB: We wanted to see if The American Voter stood the test of time. After all, it was based on elections now over 50 years old. Perhaps the conclusions were completely old-fashioned. We wanted to find out.

UMP: What did you find out as you researched and wrote the book?

MLB: The American Voter had a profound impact on scholars, pundits, and politicians, and ordinary students of American elections. It became the accepted way of thinking about how citizens actually behaved politically. But there has been a growing worry that what it discovered is no longer true. After all, it came out in 1960. At first blush, the obvious reaction is that it is out-of-date, and no longer offers relevant explanations. We wanted to see if, in fact, its theories and conclusions still held up, once you applied them to current presidential elections. For example, do socio-economic conditions and, especially, party identification, still largely determine how Americans vote? Are voters still mostly inattentive to politics, with a rather low level of interest in politics, and very little understanding of the liberal-conservative debate raging at the elite level? The answer to these questions, perhaps surprisingly, is "yes." In other words, the typical American voter follows pretty much the same cues as he or she did fifty years ago.

UMP: How does your approach differ from The American Voter?

MLB: The key difference is that it employs contemporary presidential elections, 2000 and 2004, instead of relying on 1952 and 1956. This is important for several reasons. For one, students barely even know who the candidates, Stevenson and Eisenhower, were. For another, it is plausible that how voters behave has dramatically changed. If this is so, it needs to be documented.

In that context, it seemed important to us to follow, to the extent possible, the original research procedures of Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes. By that means, a clear answer could be arrived at—we could say, one way or another, if voters were different, then to now. As we mentioned above, they are remarkably the same.

UMP: Why is voting behavior of interest?

MLB: Voting behavior is about what people do do, not what they should do or might do. It is that behavior that elects presidential candidates, or defeats them. Collectively, it is probably the most important political act in the country. Thus, how individuals do actually vote, and why, is the research focus. For example, we would not ask if some should vote for Hillary Clinton or not. That is a question of their personal values. Instead, we would ask, Given you vote for Clinton, why do you do it? With questions such as this, we begin to sort out what moves voters, and why some candidates win, some lose.

UMP: How was information gathered for your book?

MLB: The information, or data, for the book come from scientific national samples of the American electorate, for the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. These public opinion polls, conducted by the National Election Study, out of the University of Michigan, are the premier source of information available about the individual American voter.

UMP: What are the National Election Studies and what part do they play in both the original and this book?

MLB: The National Election Studies systematically interview, face-to-face, about 1500 voters, before and after each election. Each interview lasts an hour or more, and contains an extensive set of questions about political attitudes, issues, and behaviors, and socio-economic background. There are many election polls in the country, but the NES, as they are called, serve as the flagship.

The NES surveys offered a revolutionary new way of studying voters. Never before had individuals been systematically examined in this way. They were begun in 1948, and their 1952 and 1956 surveys formed the core information source for the original. In our book, we draw a conscious parallel to that choice, selecting the most current two NES now available, that for the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.

UMP: How does the NES arrive at a sample of the national electorate?

MLB: The NES draws a probability sample of the entire American electorate, usually of around 1500 respondents. Since selection is based on principles of randomness, it is representative of all American voters. In other words, it is effectively a microcosm of them. That is why, even though they only speak to around 1500 voters, they can make statements about all American voters. An almost unique feature, these days, of the NES is that the interviews are face-to-face (i.e., in home talking to individuals in private), as opposed to telephone. This makes them especially valuable.

UMP: You write that you are more interested in understanding the processes that lead to voting behavior rather than predicting that behavior. Why is that?

MLB: We are most interested in understanding why voters act the way they do. When you can answer the question, why did voters pick candidate X over candidate Y, you can solve a lot of disagreements. For example, why in 2004 did voters select George Bush over John Kerry? There was a lot of speculation in the press about that question. We show a number of reasons why this occurred, and rule out some reasons that do not hold up. For instance, voters saw Kerry as indecisive, and Bush as trustworthy. Also, those who saw the economy as improving stuck with the President. Further, the Democrats were less loyal to Kerry, than the Republicans were to Bush. These are but some of the findings. Such results move us well down the road, in terms of explaining voting behavior generally.

About prediction, we are not saying prediction is not important; it is. In fact, we do demonstrate that, knowing a voter’s set of attitudes prior to an election, we can predict the vote rather accurately. Unfortunately for prediction of the overall election outcome, these measures of attitudes are not available until after the election takes place.

UMP: One point you make is very interesting, that the party with a group image problem is the Republican party. Can you explain?

MLB: There are certain groups in the society that are more reliably Democratic than Republican, among them labor, blacks, low-income voters, Jews, and urban dwellers. In other words, the historical New Deal coalition that was formed after Franklin Roosevelt became president. This coalition is changing somewhat, for example, it is gaining women and Hispanics. The Republicans have had a difficult time attracting these groups. However, they are making some inroads into the New Deal coalition, for example, with southern whites, and Catholics. Indeed, our analysis shows that Catholics, while they used to be solidly Democrat, are no longer.

UMP: It almost seems as if another The American Voter Revisited would be a good idea after the 2008 election. (In that the next election might be a watershed event).

MLB: It is always good to keep findings fresh, by incorporating new information, such as the 2008 election will provide. Will it be a watershed event? Clearly, there will be new candidate faces, on both the Republican and Democratic sides. The Iraq war, which was a major issue in 2004, still persists today. The economy is also at the top of the agenda. And, the American electorate is somewhat more ideological than it used to be. But do these things add up to a watershed? Commonly in presidential elections, there is the challenge of change. Look at the special dramas of 2000 and 2004. While 2008 will not be like them, it can be expected to have its share of compelling issues. The key question for us is how the American voter responds to these issues. Do they rely on the same signals, the same thought processes, the same underlying set of preferences, or not? My guess is that they will respond in ways very similar to ways they always have.

UMP: Expanding on that answer: What does The American Voter Revisited tell us about the upcoming 2008 election?

MLB: The outcome will be shaped by long-term, and short-term, forces. First, look at the long-term forces. At the end of the campaign, American voters return to their party identification for guidance. Almost always, they vote for the candidate of the party they feel attached to. It is important to emphasize this point. Someone who says they are a Democrat will, almost invariably, vote for the Democratic Candidate. Likewise, a Republican will do the same with regard to the Republican candidate. This does not leave a lot of wiggle room. There are in fact some true independents in the electorate, but they are only around ten percent of the voters. Besides party, enduring group attachments count. For example, blacks, Jews, Hispanics, women, and labor union members are clearly more likely to vote Democratic, southern white males and evangelicals are clearly more likely to vote Republican.

With respect to short-term forces, there are the various issues, and candidate leadership characteristics. The two leading issues, war and the economy, will both be on the agenda in 2008. What we have shown is that Republicans have an edge from voters on the war issue, at least if the war is going well. With respect to the economy, the party in the White House, Republican in this case, will be punished for bad times. Other issues, such as health care or the environment, will have only limited play because, as we have demonstrated, most American voters do not tend to such issues and, when they do, they have difficulty differentiating the candidates on them.

Of course, this bundle of forces does not compose a crystal ball, enabling us to foretell without error who will win the contest. But it does show that, for the individual voter, there are clear reasons that can be pointed to for his or her choice. These reasons have to do with that voter’s perceived interest, in the short- and long-run. In other words, they are not merely passive spectators of a popularity contest, with shallow or fickle opinions based on personality or appearance or what the latest talking head is saying. That is, they are certainly not fools, as the authors of the original The American Voter pointed out, and our work continues to demonstrate.

UMP: How do you see The American Voter Revisited's place in the canon of books on American politics?

The original, The American Voter, was unique. It changed the way political scientists thought about how people voted, and spawned literally thousands of books and articles, One can say, without hesitation, that it is the most widely cited book in the discipline. Beyond that monumental influence, it reached, as few academic books have, the hearts and minds of many politicians and pundits. There are a handful of scholarly political science books that this group knows. This is one of them.

We of course do not expect to attain that level of recognition. However, our book, The American Voter Revisited, largely vindicates the findings and interpretations of The American Voter itself. Thus, it deserves a place next to it on the canonical bookshelf.

Read more about The American Voter Revisited at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=92266

Q&A with Michael Musheno and Susan M. Ross

Michael Musheno and Susan M. Ross are the authors of Deployed: How Reservists Bear the Burden of Iraq. We sat down with Michael and Susan to talk about the book.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

University of Michigan Press: What was the inspiration or motivating reason for writing this book? What was missing from the public discussion that made this book in your view necessary?

Michael Musheno: This project came looking for us more than our setting out to write a book about the deployment of reservists. We came to know each other in 2002-03 at Lycoming College, a small liberal arts institution in central Pennsylvania where Susan has been a professor for several years and [I] returned as a visiting professor to [my] undergraduate alma mater. By the time the two of us had met and struck up a friendship, Susan already had several student reservists receive orders and deploy.

Susan M. Ross: Within this small college setting, deployed students and alumni started corresponding with [me] and their letters from Afghanistan and later Iraq revealed stories of fear, anxiety, personal triumphs, and frustrations. Michael and [I] started to have long conversations about the wars and the letters from [these] students. Were they fighting this generation’s Vietnam? Had they gotten more than they'd bargained for when they signed up as young men and women to serve? Would their friends remember them when they returned to campus? Would they be able to pick up their studies where they had left off? We weren’t certain how they would handle the transformation from cloistered undergraduates to wartime soldiers and back again. We began talking about how we might use our positions and knowledge to give voice to the experiences of citizen soldiers called to fight after 9/11.

MM: As we started talking about a project, we read accounts about soldiering, popular and academic, contemporary and historical. To our surprise we found little to share with the student soldiers that seemed helpful to them or us. Turning to our own expertise and past field projects, we concluded that the best contribution we could make would be to use our positions to enable reservists, like those called from the classroom, to tell their stories about becoming citizen soldiers, being deployed and coming home.

UMP: Your decision to include significant portions of the soldiers' raw responses to your interview questions makes for a very personal account of their lives. Was there ever a discussion of approaching the book a different way or was this how you went about putting the book together from the beginning?

MM: We went after their voices from the get go. Our job was to create the questions to conduct retrospective interviews with the soldiers that would provide us with a way to understand how they imagine themselves as "citizen soldiers," an identity that was thrown upon them, and to reveal their evolving relationships with one another and the people important in their civilian lives. We did want to see if there were patterns that cut across the individual life histories and indeed, we found clusters of soldiers whose stories are sufficiently similar to allow us to tell our story about their lives. Still, we want that story to be told as much through their voices as our own.

UMP: Why did you choose this particular unit, rather than, say, one from later in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

SR: The men and women of the 893rd were among the first wave of reserve soldiers deployed as a unit twice after 9/11, first for a year stateside and after a very short break, to Iraq for nearly a year. They entered Iraq shortly following President Bush's declaration that the mission in Iraq had been accomplished as he stood aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and finally came home with the complete understanding that they were fighting, as they often noted, "this generation's Vietnam." These citizen soldiers experienced the Iraq War at the same time the U.S. military was playing catch up with the Bush Administration's declared war on terror, and it played out in everything from an overall shortage of properly armored vehicles to their coming home to a veterans' administration ill-equipped to handle this new wave of war veterans. These soldiers, like many who followed them, were providing support services in a war with no clear lines between the combat zone and rear guard safe havens. And, in the two years the 893rd was deployed, its members saw the public shift from flag waving patriots to war skeptics who questioned reserve units, like the 893rd, whose assignment closely paralleled the assignment of the reservists whose work at Abu Ghraib gave the entire reserve system a black eye.

UMP: Did you hear about the reservists being told to stop talking about this subject, or were the authors told directly by US officials? What do they think of that response? What kind of reactions are they getting/hearing about reservists being told to be quiet, if any, since it's so crucial that these Americans have a voice?

SR: While we did hear from colleagues in larger research institutions that gaining access to soldiers was becoming increasingly difficult, we did not experience any difficulties in working with the 893rd. The ability to give voice to these reservists was central to our motivation, and while many people had warned us going into the field that soldiers would likely not open up to outsiders, we actually had a difficult time keeping our one-on-one conversations with them under two hours. They wanted to be able to tell their stories and hoped that in doing so, they might make a positive difference in the lives of other reservists. After finishing the book, we spoke with several former members of the company, and they are quite pleased to know that their experiences may help inform future military policy.

UMP: While gathering together the interviews you conducted, what sorts of patterns or parallels did you find among the reservists?

MM: When we listened to the voices of 46 members of the 893rd, we found neither a potpourri of individual stories of completely distinct experiences nor a singular meta-story of "the citizen soldier experience." Instead, we came to realize there were three clusters of stories of citizen soldiering post-9/11.

One cluster, adaptive reservists, adjust quickly, moving lock-step with changing institutional expectations as a result of a dynamic sense of their identity and relational networks that run deep at home and in the military. These reservists cut across gender groups to include men who have experienced international deployments as well as all the female reservists who had been raised in military families.

Other citizen soldiers, who we call struggling reservists, juggle the many home-grown stresses of the shaky civilian lives they left behind as they take on very demanding military duties. These men, and all but one were men, expressed some combination of discontent, disappointment, disillusionment, and disapproval about the circumstances of their civilian lives and came to find deployments oddly comforting, even if they were experiencing war-grown troubles.

Finally, we heard the stories from resistant reservists who are dismissive of military life while they live it and are against the war even as they fight it. These citizen soldiers get out of the military as soon as possible and yet, have many attributes that are most valuable to today’s military. They are ambitious, analytical, more educated than many of their peers, and patriotic.

UMP: Were there surprises along the way in these stories? What are some things you found that were unexpected?

SR: We were warned by military veterans before entering the field that military personnel are unlikely to want to talk to civilian researchers about their experiences. We were actually met with an eagerness among the citizen soldiers who yearned to have someone, somewhere interested in learning of the sacrifices they had made for what was becoming an increasingly ungrateful nation. They were often dismayed by the short-lived civilian concern for their experiences and sacrifices despite having been warned in debriefing sessions that, "People really don't care where you've been or what you've done." In talking with us, they wanted the military planners and military families to learn from their experiences.

MM: In terms of their overall stories, two things were perhaps most surprising and ran counter to the popular discourse on soldiering. First, we did not expect to find the large cluster of adaptive reservists. The heavy emphasis in the literature on war-induced trauma did not prepare us for hearing stories of reservists pleased to have had their years of training put to the test and still living in happily intact families who had made "lemonade out of lemons" as one officer noted. Many of the citizen soldiers we spoke with were seriously contemplating transferring to the full-time active duty component of the Army.

Second, we did not expect to find that so many of the soldiers who were clearly struggling in their personal lives were struggling long before they were deployed. While the deployments certainly exacerbated their personal struggles, they were most often not the cause of the reservists' struggles.

UMP: You say that some soldiers' troubles are as much homegrown as they are war-grown. What do you mean?

MM: The men and women of the 893rd were living their lives on September 10, 2001 without the anticipation that in the coming weeks their first responsibility would be to the Army. While they had woven military reserve service into their civilian lives through their one weekend a month and two weeks per summer training schedule, they were actively engaged in their civilian lives – lives that for some, who we call struggling reservists, were already spinning out of control or producing dissatisfaction and high stress. So if a young man was dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, unanticipated and extended military service was only going to exacerbate that problem. Already stressed families dependent on a reservist during peace times to provide a significant amount of emotional, physical, or financial support, were completely disrupted during the deployments and lashed out at reservists for their absence. These are the types of problems that the reservists dealt with that we dub homegrown struggles, whereas war-grown struggles are those more typically thought of as negatively impacting soldiers' lives due to the traumas of being in war zones.

UMP: You write that "some of the soldiers oppose the war even as they take pride in fighting it." What do you mean? And what do their fellow soldiers think of that stance?

SR: Although you volunteer for military service, a soldier doesn't get to pick the war in which he or she will be called to duty. The resistant reservists joined the military because of the great pride they feel in being Americans and their desire to give something back in return. These ideologically-driven soldiers take pride in having established themselves as men among men, so to speak, and having made a tremendous sacrifice for their country. At the same time, no amount of rationalization will convince them that they are participating in a justified war in Iraq.

UMP: Why do you call reservists "the new conscripts of the twenty-first century U.S. Army?"

MM: We call the reservists the new conscripts of the twenty-first century U.S. Army to awaken the public to the extreme sacrifices this small number of our citizens are making while most of us have been allowed to avoid any sacrifices in one of the longest wars in American history. There is no precedent in our history for calling on so few of our citizens to multiple wartime deployments while calling upon so little of the rest of us. Many of the reservists we came to know willingly left their civilian jobs and families twice, including their serving nearly a year in Iraq, but they have grown distrustful of the military and uncertain about their futures, not knowing whether there is any end to their volunteering to serve their country.

SR: The response to this inequity of service is felt fully in the comments of enlisted reservist Troy Bixler, a college student and son of a former military man who eagerly anticipated military service, puts it this way: "I actually got to the point where I felt like the army was going to use me until I died, as in died while I was doin' my job. Because after being deployed once and being deployed again, I was like, 'So, obviously I can't be deployed again because I’m dead.'"

UMP: Are there parallels to—or differences with—Vietnam in the way reservists are used today?

MM: In the early months of 1965, U.S. executive and military leaders agreed that the Vietnam War was going badly. Elite units of the South Vietnamese Army were defeated by the Vietcong in major battles, North Vietnamese Army units were beginning to move into South Vietnam, and there was deep concern that the North was preparing for an all-out offensive on Saigon, now Ho Chi Min City. It was a time in which President Lyndon Johnson made the decision to escalate the war over an alternative to negotiate as favorable withdrawal of U.S. military forces as possible.

With this decision taken, the debate shifted to how such a force would be put together and deployed. The military leadership wanted the president to declare an emergency and call up the reserve. They reasoned that deployment of reserve forces would put the public on notice that America was at war and provide the army with experienced junior leaders in the field. President Johnson and leaders in the U.S. Congress realized that a call-up of the reserves would put the war front and center in American politics, and get in the way of the President's ambitious domestic policies.

The President decided to rely on expanding the draft over mobilizing reserve forces and as a consequence the Reserve as an institution was ripped apart. The established members of the Reserve, particularly its sergeants and officers, were veterans of the active military and previous military campaigns. While these reservists were not anxious to go to war, they had strong ties to the military and substantial experience to draw upon when deployed to war zones. With the President's decision to withhold these forces, the Reserve became a refuge for the disaffected and a haven for those whose connections allowed them to avoid the draft.

UMP: Why do we rely so heavily on citizen soldiers, the Reserve and National Guard, for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

SR: One of the casualties of the Vietnam War was the end of the draft in July of 1973. The question of how to raise armies has been a controversy in the U.S. since the nation's founding. Throughout most of its history, the U.S. has relied on a draft to conduct protracted ground wars, including World War II. With the draft ended, the task of putting together an army was left to General Creighton Abrams, who was a legendary combat commander in World War II and a high ranking officer during the Vietnam War. As the army's chief of staff, Abrams put into motion the policy, called Total Force Doctrine that would restore the reputation of the Reserve and determine its fate to be a force deployed en masse to Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.

MM: Abrams, like many of his contemporaries, was deeply disturbed that President Johnson had decided to tip toe into the Vietnam War without the public's full awareness and commitment. He saw soldiers perform bravely and consistently under battlefield conditions but also witnessed growing difficulties he attributed to a reliance on conscription without public backing. Abrams and his colleagues regarded the mobilization of reserve forces as the crucial decision that must be taken any time America was contemplating engagement of its military in sustained combat. The reserve provides the army with experienced officers and public awareness of war because it draws upon citizens from across the rural areas, towns and cities of America.

The army he put together after Vietnam, involving three separate components, relies substantially on a combat force of professional, active duty soldiers. The active duty component is augmented with what he called "round-out" combat forces made up of elements of the National Guard. The responsibility of the Reserve is largely to provide the support needed to maintain the army in the field for sustained combat, including medics, cargo handlers, maintenance and transportation personnel, and military police. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan became protracted wars, rather than a quick war like the first Gulf War, the army put total force doctrine into practice, resulting in the heavy reliance on particular reserve forces where the lines between combat and military support are blurred, and danger is ever present. Typically, a third of the forces serving in these wars has been and remains reserve forces.

UMP: In a similar vein, who are these citizen soldiers and where do they come from?

SR: In terms of geography, the reservists of the 893rd, like those from units around the country, are representative of the American public. They come from big cities, suburbs, small towns and rural areas. Their social characteristics, though, are more particular to the civilian work force that is blue, not white collar, ranging from jobs in the service economy to frontline civil servants, including police and correctional officers.

A substantial number of them are ambitious first and second generation college students going to community colleges, state universities and small liberal arts colleges, paying for college in large part through their service in the reserve. The Army Reserve has the highest percent of female and minority soldiers of any of the three Army components, with about one third of the membership African American or Hispanic and about 14 percent female. The over-representation of minorities is an often-cited rationale for reinstating a draft. With the advent of the all-volunteer military, there has been a marked transformation in the composition of military personnel as a growing number of soldiers are married and approximately 40 percent of reservists have children. Many who are noncommissioned and commissioned officers were professional soldiers before transitioning into the reserve or rejoining as reservists. Most of the citizen soldiers we came to know were motivated to join to better themselves economically and to enhance their sense of themselves, taking pride in having part of their identities associated with the military.

UMP: Some say that the reservists and members of the National Guard should be making the sacrifices post 9/11 because they joined voluntarily and have been getting benefits from the government for years that the rest of us don't have. What is your response to that?

SR: Like us, many of our friends and acquaintances have made few if any sacrifices since 9/11. When we started talking about our view that citizen soldiers are the new conscripts of today's U.S. Army, we kept hearing a refrain – these guys are volunteers for military service, they have received the benefits, including money for college, that go with signing up, and now they should be expected to fulfill their duties.

MM: In our view, the fact that reservists have volunteered, get paid, and have some benefits does not solve the inequity problem that a very small number of our citizens are carrying the full weight of war on their soldiers. Our designation of them as conscripts is intended to awaken the public to their sacrifices and draw attention of decision makers to halt the abuse of reservist call-ups to sustain protracted wars that are neither just nor in the interest of the United States.

UMP: How have the Iraq and Afghanistan wars changed, if they have changed, the way we maintain forces—reservists, National Guard, or army volunteers? Do you think that the way we maintain forces will undergo a transformation in the future as a result of what's happened in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

MM: Beginning with George Washington, many leaders in the U.S. have called for universal national service of the American public as part of our duties as citizens. But, when push comes to shove, the raising of an army to fight a ground war has always fallen disproportionately on the less privileged of American citizens. We don't see this changing particularly when patriotic fervor wanes and a war becomes prolonged and less popular. American military leaders reasoned after the Vietnam War that making the reserve integral to a ground war would sober the political leadership of this country in taking the decision to go to war. Doing this did not stop the most recent march to war by our political leadership and so, we are back to a point where the public is skeptical of our political leadership, distrustful of the media's accounting of the lead up to war, and more aware of the costs of protracted war. That will probably put a break on going into another war in the near term but it leaves our nation vulnerable to political and media propaganda when our first hand memories fade and still without a solution to our longstanding struggle over how to raise an army that can fight successfully when necessary and serve as a brake on the political leadership when not. We agree with those who advocate for a program of national service that provides citizens with options, including becoming citizen soldiers. We are not so naïve to think that the story we tell about the sacrifices of the few will turn the tide but it may fall upon the ears of future leaders who will require more sacrifices of the many and make clear the boundaries of sacrifices required of the few.

Read more about Deployed: How Reservists Bear the Burden of Iraq at www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=262968

Q&A with Tom Springer

Reading Tom Springer's essays, one might hear the voice of Robert Frost, Emerson, or perhaps, from more recent times, Bill Bryson. Springer's essays are set for the most part in the natural world—the world we often forget, the one beyond and outside the parallel lives most of us live in our cars, office buildings, or on conference calls. What Springer does so well is remind us that we should never forget our connection to the natural world. He is an eloquent persuader to listen, look, and learn. Here, Tom Springer answers a few questions about himself, his special way of seeing the world, and his new book, Looking for Hickories: The Forgotten Wildness of the Rural Midwest.

University of Michigan Press: Why is the book subtitled "the forgotten wildness"? How has it been forgotten?

Tom Springer: When people hear Midwest, they think of red barns, cows, and cornfields. This is "flyover country," a place you pass through to get somewhere else. That's partly because wild land doesn't exist here on the same scale as it does in places like Oregon, where pine forests stretch across entire counties. Yet our wild landscapes are incredibly diverse and abundant in terms of wildlife and plant life.

Oddly enough, except for deer hunting season, our wild landscapes are largely devoid of people. Somehow we've forgotten that these places even exist, and I'd like my writing to help change that. Perhaps the more we know and love the individual pieces—the shagbark hickories, the blue herons, the tree-lined gravel roads—the more we'll value and protect the larger whole.

UMP: Your essays are often about nature. Why is that?

TS: Basically, it's because nature never disappoints. It may half kill me with 90 degree heat or -30 wind chill, but it never leaves me anxious and distressed the way too much e-mail or a day of long meetings does. Whenever I go outdoors with my eyes wide open, I find something new or different—always. I'm also intrigued by people who go against the grain to earn a living in ways that sustain the environment. One of the book's essays describes Jan Burda, a guy who lives in a handmade cabin and makes musical instruments from the trees that fall in his woods. Imagine being able to work this way in the 21st century—how cool is that?

UMP: Are there some defining characteristics of Michiganders or Midwesterners?

TS: For one thing, no Midwesterner thinks they have an accent. We think we occupy the linguistic center of the English-speaking world and that everyone else talks funny. Midwesterners can also be overly pragmatic and utilitarian, which may explain why we don't appreciate our region's natural beauty the way we should. We expect the land to prove its value by the bushels of grain or the board feet of timber it can yield.

UMP: Your writing is reminiscent of Robert Frost in its immersion into nature as a way of seeing the world of humans. Do you see a connection with Frost or any other writer?

TS: What Frost does so well is explore the human condition within the context of the natural world. When he writes about apple picking, or stone walls, or cutting hay with a scythe, he's convincing because he's deeply familiar with his subject. There's something wonderfully practical and American about that. Two similar writers who have influenced me greatly are Wendell Berry and Wallace Stegner. Both write with power and grace about the relationship between people and nature—the good and the bad. For humor and insight, I've learned much from the essays of E.B. White and the prose of Bill Bryson.

UMP: Which essay in Looking for Hickories do you like most?

TS: The one that was most rewarding to complete was "Another Bend in the River." In one form or another, I've tried to write that off and on for 25 years. Before I even knew I could write, I sat down at my mother's kitchen table with a Bic pen and a spiral notebook to tell this story. But I couldn't finish it then, because I had only lived out the first act. And I couldn't finish it three years ago, even when I thought I was on my way to being a successful writer. With a piece of writing like this, you have to live your way to the end of it. Only then can it come together on paper. It took a painful personal crisis before I was able to complete "Another Bend in the River" the way that I did.

UMP: Are you working on another book project?

TS: In my own way, I guess that I am. I keep a journal, and have plenty of notes that will be worked u pinto essays. Yet in the warm months, I do very little writing. I work indoors all day as it is, and when I get home, I can't stand to hole up in a chair with a laptop computer. I'd rather fish, garden, or feed mosquitoes. This winter, however, I'll be back at it, pecking away in front of the fireplace on long winter evenings. This region is richer in stories that most people realize, so there's certainly no shortage of material to draw from.

Mirage: Winner of the Florida Book Award

Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S. has been awarded the gold medal for nonfiction 2007 Florida Book Award.

The Florida Book Awards is an annual program established in 2006 that recognizes, honors, and celebrates the best Florida literature published the previous year. It is coordinated by the Florida State University Program in American and Florida Studies, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, "Just Read, Florida!," Governor's Family Literacy Initiative, Florida Association for Media in Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, and Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

Submissions were read by seven juries of three members each nominated from across the state by co-sponsoring organizations. Jurors were authorized to select up to five medalists (including one winner and one runner-up) in each of the seven categories.

To read more about Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S., click here.

Q&A with Nancy Goldstein

Nancy Goldstein is the author of Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist. We sat down with Nancy to talk about the book, her interest in dolls, and the extraordinary life of Jackie Ormes.

You can also listen to this interview on our University of Michigan Press Author Podcast page at: www.press.umich.edu/podcasts/index.jsp.

University of Michigan Press: Talk a bit about why and how you came to write this book. You have a long-standing interest in dolls, right?

Nancy Goldstein: Yes, I came to write this book through my interest in dolls. I am a doll collector and have written about doll history—dolls, . . .playthings, in the image of human beings, usually made for girls. There are a couple of doll history books that have information about the Patty-Jo doll by cartoonist Jackie Ormes. She transformed her cartoon character, Patty-Jo, into a doll. This is a beautiful, upscale doll in an era when most black dolls were rag mammies and Topsy-types. So, I was curious to learn more about the woman who created this extraordinary doll.

UMP: What caught your eye to lead you to launch a full-scale investigation and then a book about Jackie Ormes?

NG: I had heard that Jackie Ormes actually promoted her doll in her cartoons, in the newspaper. What were those cartoons? . . . I wondered, so I went to the University library and pulled a reel of microfilm off the shelf—the Pittsburgh Courier of 1947. The Courier was at that time the biggest circulating African American newspaper with 14 editions coast to coast. They claimed to have over a million readers! It was a weekly, came out on Saturday. Wow—as I cranked through the microfilm, I was thrilled by what I saw, a piece of American history suddenly came to life, in headlines that seemed so urgent and immediate! Here was news and commentary from the perspective of the black community. These were the days before the civil rights movements. There were page after page of stories and photos of achievement, struggle, celebration, controversy—all from an African American point of view. And then there were . . . the funnies! All the characters were African American! And not a minstrel show either, not the stereotypes or caricatures you’d see in comics of those days in the mainstream press. These cartoon people had real lives, real issues, and dealt with them on their own terms. Well, here Jackie Ormes's cartoon—Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger—stood out on the page: clear, crisp, black-outlined drawings of a beautiful woman dressed in high fashion, and her little sister, who always had something smart to say. These are charming drawings, so fun to look at! Patty-Jo does all the talking, and Ginger reacts to her words, like wide-eye surprise at whatever Patty-Jo is saying. But . . as I said, I had started by searching for the Patty-Jo doll, and yes I found lots of doll images . . . the character Patty-Jo holding the doll, or Patty-Jo telling readers to save their money for a doll, or even carrying in her hand a coupon to order the doll . . .with Jackie Ormes's own home address in Chicago where she lived. It was audacious product placement! But then the cartoons themselves began to capture my interest. In the cartoons, Ormes satirizes issues that are in the news headlines. I wondered, who IS this person, Jackie Ormes? Why has no one written about her? and these amazing cartoons? So, it was Jackie Ormes's cartoons on their original pages, ensconced as they were in the news of the time, that opened the door to this larger project. Jackie Ormes died in 1985 at age 74, and I knew that many of her contemporaries were gone, or would soon be. So it seemed important to get what information I could as soon as possible.

UMP: Apart from being the only black cartoonist of her time—a huge accomplishment in itself—what else do you see as particularly unique about Jackie Ormes as a person and a cartoonist? How does she fit into the canon of American cartoonists and social commentators?

NG: Actually there were a number of male cartoonists in the black press, but yes, she was the first woman, and the only black woman cartoonist.

Ormes stepped out of a comfortable, traditional middle class place in rather high society in South Side Chicago, and entered a man's world, the profession of newspaper cartooning. This was something women just didn't do. Her social and political commentary could be compared to the editorial cartoons of Herblock and Bill Mauldin in the mainstream papers, and also Oliver Harrington in the black press. Like them, she was a presence on the national scene, and used her soap box—the newspaper—to talk about important issues—like foreign policy, the arms race, jobs, housing, education. But political comics were just a part of her work. There was also her humorous satire about everyday situations and human foibles.

Jackie Ormes's drawings are unique and remarkable, perhaps especially since she was a self-taught cartoonist. Her women are drawn with great sensitivity, the lines of their faces, bodies and clothes are supple and quite believeable. When you see her work on the page, next to the other cartoonists, you can tell she was a great natural draftsperson. . . compared to hers, the others sometimes look stiff and static.

Outside of cartooning, Jackie Ormes was a fashion leader in South Side Chicago, and she had a business training models. She thrived on high fashion . . . her comics reflect her love of fashion. For instance, her characters talked about Christian Dior's New Look . . . Ormes would move their hemlines up or down, depending on the fashion dictates of the time. Her characters' hair was always in style. They wore fashionable shoes, and she’d have Ginger for instance stepping right out of the cartoon, over the border, almost it would be into the reader's lap, to draw attention to these great high heels or cute flats or string sandals, and of course Ginger's beautiful legs. Torchy in Torchy Togs paper dolls had clothes like mink-trimmed evening gowns, smart day suits with matching hats and gloves, and lots of trendy casual wear. Then, in her cartoons, Ormes would turn the humor on herself and make fun of fashion . . . the style dictators, how they kept changing their minds, and how people—like her—followed the fads.

But she also did a lot of volunteer work, and worked for progress in South Side Chicago. Ormes produced fashion shows and other entertainments, bringing in top entertainers to star in fund-raisers for the Urban League, and the NAACP, and the Chicago Negro Chamber of Commerce. For almost two decades, when the childhood disease of polio was rampant, she supported the March of Dimes in her cartoons and also organized her neighborhood for the door to door campaign. There are letters of thanks from state congressional representatives for her work as precinct captain, and letters from schools for her appearances at career days—to name a few.

And then, there's the fascinating way they lived . . . Jackie was in the center of things. Her husband, Earl Ormes, at one time managed the upscale Sutherland Hotel, and they lived at the Sutherland. Blacks couldn't get a room at a hotel in the Loop, so here was a high quality South Side accommodation for travelers, like entertainers, politicians, and others. Jackie and Earl socialized with celebrities and persons of some fame. She fit right in, and made contacts—like with bandleader Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, and singer Sarah Vaughn—she would later ask some of these friends and acquaintances to perform in her fund-raising shows.

UMP: Cartoons seem to have come of age. Was Jackie Ormes ahead of her time? And if so, how?

NG: Oh yes, Ormes was especially ahead of her time in bringing the serious issues of racism and the environment into her comic themes. In 1954, Ormes's character Torchy in Torchy in Heartbeats battled the owner of a factory that was polluting a little southern town and making the people sick. This is about the same time that cartoonist Walt Kelly had Pogo walking through the filthy, polluted Okeefenokee Swamp, saying, "We have met the enemy and he is us . . ." But Ormes went further to show that the polluter in her comic, the factory owner, was also a racial bigot. Torchy and her doctor boyfriend bring the factory owner around and the story ends with the industrialist changing his ways, and, in the comic, there's an image of reconciliation, a closeup of a handshake between white and black hands. Today the struggle to cleanup our poorer neighborhoods is called "environmental justice," and I’m not sure any cartoonist even yet has addressed it . . . maybe Aaron McGruder in Boondocks, he makes racially relevant protest comics.

UMP: What do Ormes' cartoons say about the times in which they were written?

NG: Ormes was a great observer of the world around her. Looking at her work is a time-travel—through cartoons! One Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger cartoon has Patty-Jo complaining about President Truman’s foreign policy; another has children in a run-down tenement, a protest of inferior housing; another makes fun of abstract art; and then there was cartoon after cartoon railing on about the HUAC, and Senator Joseph McCarthy with his now much reviled hearings on television. It's striking that some of these are issues that are still with us today! like free speech, the arms buildup, taxes, fashions and fads. Occasionally she has cameo appearances of celebrities. Her late 1930s Torchy series takes her from a Mississippi farm to Harlem's Cotton Club, with cartoon images of entertainers Bill Bojangles Robinson, Cab Calloway, and Josephine Baker. But much of her work was simply humorous observation of human foibles, funny takes on everyday life. Her beautiful characters are dressed in contemporary clothing, in carefully drawn, detailed surroundings, like their homes or city streets, department stores, parks, movie houses. Ormes shows how people dressed, how they furnished their homes, how they traveled: trains, cars, and in 1937 even airplane travel. Really so much fun to look at, but also a visual commentary on modern life, a window into an era.

It's pretty clear that Ormes was fascinated with the image of the pinup girl, so popular at the time. Her characters Ginger and Torchy are very curvaceous and beautifully dressed—or not much dressed!—but for all that they appear quite modest and acceptable, really. These pinup images must have helped sell newspapers! All the popular print media was doing pinups at the time, they had become popular especially as morale boosters during wartime. People who knew her say she looked and dressed like many of her characters.

UMP: Describe the world of women cartoonists, if you can, at the time of Jackie Ormes' prominence. Ormes was the only black woman cartoonist in the heyday of newspaper comics in the mid-twentieth century. What sort of obstacles would a woman cartoonist encounter in her work to become recognized?

NG: In one interview in 1947 Ormes said, "Women cartoonists are not so rare as you think." So she obviously was thinking of others like Gladys Parker who drew Flapper Fanny and later she drew Mopsy; Ormes's art work is in fact quite reminiscent of Parker's, clean crisp lines, and pinup figures. It was tough for women to crack into this man's profession of newspaper cartooning. Some people say, even today it's especially hard for women cartoonists. Some of the other women cartoonists who came before, were Nell Brinkley, Grace Drayton, Ethyl Hays, Hilda Terry, and female characters starred in their comics. One strategy to get past the gender bias back then was using an ungendered name—probably the most famous woman cartoonist for us today like this was Dale Messick, a woman who drew Brenda Starr Reporter, and also Tarpe Mills who drew Miss Fury. Maybe even "Jackie" might have been understood as a man’s name, like Jackie Robinson. But why was this opposition? Some obstacles may have been men editors who may have thought readers were mostly men who didn't want to read about a female central character. Women were supposed to depend on men, sidekicks at best, like Lois Lane in Superman. Or maybe they thought there would be too much romance and not enough action if a woman did the story. Certainly the strong, independent Brenda Starr and Miss Fury proved them wrong on those counts! But then there must have been some support, because Brenda Starr ran for over 30 years. It's interesting with Jackie Ormes, in 1978, 20-some years after her cartooning ended she wrote a little piece about herself for a club she was in, and she said about professional cartooning, "It was strictly a man's world!"

UMP: Was Ormes influenced by any other cartoonists? Who were they?

NG: Jackie left behind no statements about who influenced her. But she did say that as a youngster, she taught herself to draw by copying comics out of the newspaper. One of the comics she would have seen, and looks like her early work, is George McManus's story of Jiggs and Maggie in Bringing Up Father. Ormes's Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, from 1937-38, has similar delicate ink pen outlines, interiors of homes, and expressive faces. The story is similar as well, with both Jiggs in Bringing Up Father and Torchy in Dixie to Harlem both in rags to riches stories. Each one climbs above their station and gets into lots of messes and funny situations! Then I mentioned before Gladys Parker similar in artistic style, and of course Dale Messick's Brenda Starr Reporter, with the independent, adventurous woman who dresses beautifully and has paper dolls panels with the strip, something like the later Torchy in Heartbeats.

UMP: In a similar vein, did Jackie Ormes influence other cartoonists of her day or later?

NG: About 30 years after Ormes, Barbara Brandon-Croft had a comic strip, Where I’m Coming From, in the Universal Press Syndicate. Brandon-Croft has credited Jackie Ormes as the pioneer who inspired her work. There is now a group called The Ormes Society, African American women cartoonists and illustrators who have taken the legacy of Jackie Ormes as their inspiration. A few scholars and cartoon historians have found her work and written about it. So her influence is felt, though late in coming. But as for immediate successors—not really. The Pittsburgh Courier was a weekly African American paper and small in comparison to the mainstream papers. Ormes's work was just not as widely appreciated at the time as she deserved.

UMP: Patty-Jo the cartoon character seems to have a liberal view. Despite the fact that you point out that very little if any information was found that might reveal Ormes’ thoughts or chronicle her life, do you know anything about her politics? Was she involved in any political or social movements in her day?

NG: Her best political statements are right there in the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger cartoons. Here's a cartoon with Patty-Jo and Ginger at a Halloween party and they're dressed as witches. Patty-Jo says, "It’s a good thing we’re dressed as witches, in Hollywood the scouts are simply hunting them these days!" Then another complains about the FBI following people who speak out, or politicians hunting Communists in government, and in the 1950s during the Montgomery Alabama bus strike, Patty-Jo in a cartoon sends her roller skates to help people get around. These were the days when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with hunting Communists. He thought that Communists were hiding in government, in the military, in Hollywood, and certainly in the black community, and he thought they were engaged in treasonous activity. Naturally as a biographer, I wondered if she might have had an FBI file, and sure enough she did. They kept a file on her for about 10 years. Interestingly not because of her cartoons, but on account of friendships and her attendance at events where Communists or suspected Communists were present. When you read it, and see the informant statements and the assumptions made by the FBI agents, there is a lot of conflicting information. You have to be skeptical about some of it. It's clear Ormes was never a member of the Communist Party. For sure, she sympathized with some of their goals, like fairer treatment in housing, education, and jobs. When the FBI interviewed her in her home, it's very impressive, her words in the transcript reveal how strong this five-foot 110-pound woman was, to stand her ground with the interviewing agents. On the other hand, she also stood up to the CP when they tried to recruit her, and she refused to become a member.

Other political comments are her many Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger cartoons telling readers to get out and "VOTE!" and there's one with Patty-Jo lobbying for a civil rights plank at a presidential nominating convention. Other cartoons make statements about labor solidarity. During the Korean War days, her New Year's greeting would always be for "PEACE". And in her souvenirs are letters and papers that show how she supported and helped organize peace movements right up through the Vietnam War.

UMP: Tell us a bit about the Patty-Jo doll. What kind of doll is Patty-Jo and what significance does she have in the world of dolls?

NG: The Patty-Jo doll is an extraordinary creation—she's an elegant little black girl doll with lots and lots of beautiful clothes, made at a time when most black dolls were babies, or stereotypes and caricatures, dolls advertised as picaninnies, or mammies. She stands sixteen inches high and is made of hard plastic. The Patty-Jo doll was manufactured by the Terri Lee company of Lincoln, Nebraska, for two years, from 1947 to 1949. We don't know why the production ended; but today a company called Terri Lee Associates is now producing likenesses of this historic Patty-Jo doll fo