Medical History for the Masses: How American Comic Books Celebrated Heroes of Medicine in the 1940s

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Volumn 78, Issue 1, 2004, Pages

  Hansen, Bert ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

Cartoons; Comic books; Golden Age; Medical heroes; Medical history; Medical research; Popular culture; Scientific method

Indexed keywords

EID: 1642445348     PISSN: 00075140     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/bhm.2004.0018     Document Type: Review

References (205)

1. John C. Burnham, "American Medicine's Golden Age: What Happened to It?" Science, 1982, 215: 1474-79. Paramount in developing and popularizing the image was Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For a challenge to this view's hegemony, see Rosemary A. Stevens, "Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond Theories of Decline and Fall," Milbank Quart., 2001, 79: 327-53. Mark Schlesinger, "A Loss of Faith: The Sources of Reduced Political Legitimacy for the American Medical Profession," ibid., 2002, 80: 185-235, provides references to a substantial secondary literature on the question.
2. John C. Burnham, "American Medicine's Golden Age: What Happened to It?" Science, 1982, 215: 1474-79. Paramount in developing and popularizing the image was Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For a challenge to this view's hegemony, see Rosemary A. Stevens, "Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond Theories of Decline and Fall," Milbank Quart., 2001, 79: 327-53. Mark Schlesinger, "A Loss of Faith: The Sources of Reduced Political Legitimacy for the American Medical Profession," ibid., 2002, 80: 185-235, provides references to a substantial secondary literature on the question.
3. John C. Burnham, "American Medicine's Golden Age: What Happened to It?" Science, 1982, 215: 1474-79. Paramount in developing and popularizing the image was Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For a challenge to this view's hegemony, see Rosemary A. Stevens, "Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond Theories of Decline and Fall," Milbank Quart., 2001, 79: 327-53. Mark Schlesinger, "A Loss of Faith: The Sources of Reduced Political Legitimacy for the American Medical Profession," ibid., 2002, 80: 185-235, provides references to a substantial secondary literature on the question.
4. John C. Burnham, "American Medicine's Golden Age: What Happened to It?" Science, 1982, 215: 1474-79. Paramount in developing and popularizing the image was Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For a challenge to this view's hegemony, see Rosemary A. Stevens, "Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond Theories of Decline and Fall," Milbank Quart., 2001, 79: 327-53. Mark Schlesinger, "A Loss of Faith: The Sources of Reduced Political Legitimacy for the American Medical Profession," ibid., 2002, 80: 185-235, provides references to a substantial secondary literature on the question.
5. More precisely, the comic books of the Golden Age were published from June 1938 through 1945. The second period of novelty and success, which ran from September 1956 though 1969, is designated the "Silver Age," while "Modern Age" comics are those from 1980 to the present. To fill the gaps around the main eras, other terms are used: Pre-Golden Age, Post-Golden Age, Pre-Silver Age, Post-Silver Age. See Robert M. Overstreet, The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, published annually; I have used the 26th ed. for 1996-97 (New York: Avon Books, 1996), pp. A92-A95.
6. The importance of looking at comic books for understanding science in popular culture was noted by Roger Cooler and Stephen Pumfrey in "Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture," Hist. Sci., 1994, 32:237-67. The major examination of science in American comic books is the 1976 article by George Basalla discussed below in the section on the historiography of popular science (see n. 92). There have been no studies of medicine or health in American comic books; there is a study for France: Philippe Videlier and Piérine Piras, La santé dans les bandes dessinées (Paris: Frison-Roche, 1992).
7. The importance of looking at comic books for understanding science in popular culture was noted by Roger Cooler and Stephen Pumfrey in "Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture," Hist. Sci., 1994, 32:237-67. The major examination of science in American comic books is the 1976 article by George Basalla discussed below in the section on the historiography of popular science (see n. 92). There have been no studies of medicine or health in American comic books; there is a study for France: Philippe Videlier and Piérine Piras, La santé dans les bandes dessinées (Paris: Frison-Roche, 1992).
8. Cover by unknown artist, Real Life Comics, no. 12 (July 1943). The unsigned story is "Famine Fighter: Dr. Joseph Goldberger," on pp. 15-22. (Among the comic books cited in this article, very few acknowledged by name the writers and the artists; they are cited herein if known, but the citation of stories generally begins with the title. In this era, volume numbers were used rarely and not consistently, but the issue number is essential and appears here immediately after the magazine title, followed by cover date of the issue and pagination of the story. Note that for comic books, the date as given on a cover or copyright page was conventional and must not be taken as a historically accurate date of publication; issues usually appeared on the newsstand one to several months earlier than the cover date.) The comic books examined herein have not been reprinted and cannot be found in many libraries; about half are held in the collection of Michigan State University Libraries, and almost all are in the author's collection. A modest number of issues of two book titles are accessible online from Michigan State University Libraries: as of June 2003, color scans for all the pages in three issues of Real Heroes and a much larger run of True Comics are available at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/onlinecolls/ (accessed 9 November 2003).
9. Cover by unknown artist, Real Life Comics, no. 12 (July 1943). The unsigned story is "Famine Fighter: Dr. Joseph Goldberger," on pp. 15-22. (Among the comic books cited in this article, very few acknowledged by name the writers and the artists; they are cited herein if known, but the citation of stories generally begins with the title. In this era, volume numbers were used rarely and not consistently, but the issue number is essential and appears here immediately after the magazine title, followed by cover date of the issue and pagination of the story. Note that for comic books, the date as given on a cover or copyright page was conventional and must not be taken as a historically accurate date of publication; issues usually appeared on the newsstand one to several months earlier than the cover date.) The comic books examined herein have not been reprinted and cannot be found in many libraries; about half are held in the collection of Michigan State University Libraries, and almost all are in the author's collection. A modest number of issues of two book titles are accessible online from Michigan State University Libraries: as of June 2003, color scans for all the pages in three issues of Real Heroes and a much larger run of True Comics are available at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/onlinecolls/ (accessed 9 November 2003).
10. Cover by unknown artist, Real Life Comics, no. 12 (July 1943). The unsigned story is "Famine Fighter: Dr. Joseph Goldberger," on pp. 15-22. (Among the comic books cited in this article, very few acknowledged by name the writers and the artists; they are cited herein if known, but the citation of stories generally begins with the title. In this era, volume numbers were used rarely and not consistently, but the issue number is essential and appears here immediately after the magazine title, followed by cover date of the issue and pagination of the story. Note that for comic books, the date as given on a cover or copyright page was conventional and must not be taken as a historically accurate date of publication; issues usually appeared on the newsstand one to several months earlier than the cover date.) The comic books examined herein have not been reprinted and cannot be found in many libraries; about half are held in the collection of Michigan State University Libraries, and almost all are in the author's collection. A modest number of issues of two book titles are accessible online from Michigan State University Libraries: as of June 2003, color scans for all the pages in three issues of Real Heroes and a much larger run of True Comics are available at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/onlinecolls/ (accessed 9 November 2003).
11. "For at least a quarter century, the comic book was the dominant element in the culture of American children - they read them, re-read them, collected them, traded them. During the same period, especially during World War II, when servicemen with limited off-duty time hungered for cheap and quickly readable material, it achieved great (though less publicized) popularity as reading matter for adults" (Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson, introduction to All in Color for a Dime, ed. idem [New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1970], p. 11).
12. These works for the general reader, the moviegoer, and the radio listener are distinct from the academic writings in medical history of that era, as well as from the academic medical history that has flourished since the 1970s.
13. For now, any appreciation of de Kruif depends mostly on an autobiography: Paul de Kruif, The Sweeping Wind: A Memoir (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962); and a short account by a colleague: Ben Hibbs, Two Men on a Job (Philadelphia: Curtis, 1938). Robin Marantz Henig has a study under way; a first installment of her project, "The Life and Legacy of Paul de Kruif," appeared in the newsletter of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, APF Reporter, 2002, 20, available online at: http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF2003/Henig/Henig.html (accessed 10 November 2003).
14. For now, any appreciation of de Kruif depends mostly on an autobiography: Paul de Kruif, The Sweeping Wind: A Memoir (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962); and a short account by a colleague: Ben Hibbs, Two Men on a Job (Philadelphia: Curtis, 1938). Robin Marantz Henig has a study under way; a first installment of her project, "The Life and Legacy of Paul de Kruif," appeared in the newsletter of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, APF Reporter, 2002, 20, available online at: http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF2003/Henig/Henig.html (accessed 10 November 2003).
15. For now, any appreciation of de Kruif depends mostly on an autobiography: Paul de Kruif, The Sweeping Wind: A Memoir (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962); and a short account by a colleague: Ben Hibbs, Two Men on a Job (Philadelphia: Curtis, 1938). Robin Marantz Henig has a study under way; a first installment of her project, "The Life and Legacy of Paul de Kruif," appeared in the newsletter of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, APF Reporter, 2002, 20, available online at: http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF2003/Henig/Henig.html (accessed 10 November 2003).
16. Corporate advertising and juvenile literature are two other media that devoted substantial coverage to heroes from medical history. For example, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company created a series of seven "Health Heroes" - Marie Curie, Edward Jenner, Robert Koch, Florence Nightingale, Louis Pasteur, Walter Reed, and Edward Livingston Trudeau - who appeared in pamphlets and film strips offered to customers and school teachers.
17. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, Fla.: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible An (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). See also Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, trans. Nadia Fowler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Robert C. Harvey, "The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip," J. Pop. Cult., 1979, 12: 640-52; Joseph Witek, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Earlier, Marshall McLuhan had suggested interesting ways that media differ from each other in the kinds of participation they demand, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); my interpretation of listener/reader participation for radio and comics differs from his.
18. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, Fla.: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible An (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). See also Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, trans. Nadia Fowler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Robert C. Harvey, "The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip," J. Pop. Cult., 1979, 12: 640-52; Joseph Witek, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Earlier, Marshall McLuhan had suggested interesting ways that media differ from each other in the kinds of participation they demand, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); my interpretation of listener/reader participation for radio and comics differs from his.
19. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, Fla.: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible An (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). See also Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, trans. Nadia Fowler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Robert C. Harvey, "The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip," J. Pop. Cult., 1979, 12: 640-52; Joseph Witek, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Earlier, Marshall McLuhan had suggested interesting ways that media differ from each other in the kinds of participation they demand, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); my interpretation of listener/reader participation for radio and comics differs from his.
20. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, Fla.: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible An (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). See also Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, trans. Nadia Fowler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Robert C. Harvey, "The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip," J. Pop. Cult., 1979, 12: 640-52; Joseph Witek, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Earlier, Marshall McLuhan had suggested interesting ways that media differ from each other in the kinds of participation they demand, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); my interpretation of listener/reader participation for radio and comics differs from his.
21. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, Fla.: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible An (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). See also Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, trans. Nadia Fowler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Robert C. Harvey, "The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip," J. Pop. Cult., 1979, 12: 640-52; Joseph Witek, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Earlier, Marshall McLuhan had suggested interesting ways that media differ from each other in the kinds of participation they demand, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); my interpretation of listener/reader participation for radio and comics differs from his.
22. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, Fla.: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible An (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). See also Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, trans. Nadia Fowler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Robert C. Harvey, "The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip," J. Pop. Cult., 1979, 12: 640-52; Joseph Witek, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989). Earlier, Marshall McLuhan had suggested interesting ways that media differ from each other in the kinds of participation they demand, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); my interpretation of listener/reader participation for radio and comics differs from his.
23. It was these structural features that made comics so attractive to children and impressed the stories and characters so deeply into their imagination and memory. Reitberger and Fuchs explained it this way: "In comics, just as in fairy tales, the unreal quality of scenery and action stimulates imagination. In contrast to film and television, which made an entirely passive reception possible, comics demand the cooperation of the reader in piecing together the pictures. The text alone does not furnish the story. The books for children which are always held up in preference to comics... are in no way superior. The after-effect on a child's imagination is probably stronger with comics" (Comics: Anatomy [n. 9], p. 141).
24. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
25. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
26. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
27. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
28. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
29. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
30. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
31. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
32. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
33. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
34. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
35. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
36. The history of comics in American culture and society has recently been addressed by several strong scholarly studies that supplement the more numerous internalist histories of the comics. One or more chapters in each of these three books have been especially helpful: Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Important and useful works in the earlier scholarship on comic books include Ron Goulart, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Comics (New York: Facts on File, 1990); John L. Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974); Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics (New York: Crescent Books, 1984); Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Portland: Collectors Press, 2000); M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990); idem, "Comic Strips," in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. idem, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 3 vols., 1: 205-28; Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970), pp. 216-41; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9); William W. Savage, Jr., Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), repr. as Commies, Cowboys, and Jungle Queens (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
37. The rapid growth of Superman's popularity is astounding. See Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), p. 14.
38. Concerns about how comic book reading helped or hurt children's ability to do other reading surfaced early. In the 1940s there was much public debate and quite a number of research studies, usually by educational psychologists, reading teachers, and librarians. No consensus emerged from the scientific studies, and it is important to note that a number of prominent scientists supported comics as helpful, or at least not damaging, to the development of reading abilities. A useful, recent analysis of this literature is found in Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), pp. 5-18.
39. To better understand the power of these cartoon images, which in today's world of technicolor, electronics, and streaming video seem calm and almost quaint, we need to remind ourselves of the quieter styles of other mass media of the early 1940s. In the early forties, television, even in black and white, was still in the future. Movies with sound and full color had been around for less than fifteen years, and the Technicolor process was only ten years old. Color images had become common on Time magazine covers only in 1938. It was not until 1947 that more than a few Life magazine covers bore a color photograph.
40. Nye, Unembarrassed Muse (n. 11), p. 239; Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), pp. 3-4.
41. Nye, Unembarrassed Muse (n. 11), p. 239; Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), pp. 3-4.
42. Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 13-14.
43. Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), pp. 3-4. Nye, Unembarrassed Muse (n. 11), p. 239, reports a rise to more than twelve million per month for 1942.
44. Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), pp. 3-4. Nye, Unembarrassed Muse (n. 11), p. 239, reports a rise to more than twelve million per month for 1942.
45. Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), p. 1.
46. Roger Sabin, Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: History of Comic Art (London: Phaidon, 1996), p. 89.
47. On this subgenre generally, see Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1986), chap. 14; Benjamin F. Towle, "An Examination of Historiography in the Comics Medium," International Journal of Comic Art, 2003, 5: 262-80; and Witek, Comic Books as History (n. 9), chap. 1. Towle's recent study examines history stories in comics, not the history of the medium. For examples of unsubstantiated negative judgments about this subgenre, see Gifford, International Book of Comics (n. 11), pp. 172-73; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9), p. 139;Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 27-28, 61.
48. On this subgenre generally, see Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1986), chap. 14; Benjamin F. Towle, "An Examination of Historiography in the Comics Medium," International Journal of Comic Art, 2003, 5: 262-80; and Witek, Comic Books as History (n. 9), chap. 1. Towle's recent study examines history stories in comics, not the history of the medium. For examples of unsubstantiated negative judgments about this subgenre, see Gifford, International Book of Comics (n. 11), pp. 172-73; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9), p. 139;Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 27-28, 61.
49. On this subgenre generally, see Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1986), chap. 14; Benjamin F. Towle, "An Examination of Historiography in the Comics Medium," International Journal of Comic Art, 2003, 5: 262-80; and Witek, Comic Books as History (n. 9), chap. 1. Towle's recent study examines history stories in comics, not the history of the medium. For examples of unsubstantiated negative judgments about this subgenre, see Gifford, International Book of Comics (n. 11), pp. 172-73; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9), p. 139;Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 27-28, 61.
50. On this subgenre generally, see Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1986), chap. 14; Benjamin F. Towle, "An Examination of Historiography in the Comics Medium," International Journal of Comic Art, 2003, 5: 262-80; and Witek, Comic Books as History (n. 9), chap. 1. Towle's recent study examines history stories in comics, not the history of the medium. For examples of unsubstantiated negative judgments about this subgenre, see Gifford, International Book of Comics (n. 11), pp. 172-73; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9), p. 139;Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 27-28, 61.
51. On this subgenre generally, see Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1986), chap. 14; Benjamin F. Towle, "An Examination of Historiography in the Comics Medium," International Journal of Comic Art, 2003, 5: 262-80; and Witek, Comic Books as History (n. 9), chap. 1. Towle's recent study examines history stories in comics, not the history of the medium. For examples of unsubstantiated negative judgments about this subgenre, see Gifford, International Book of Comics (n. 11), pp. 172-73; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9), p. 139;Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 27-28, 61.
52. On this subgenre generally, see Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1986), chap. 14; Benjamin F. Towle, "An Examination of Historiography in the Comics Medium," International Journal of Comic Art, 2003, 5: 262-80; and Witek, Comic Books as History (n. 9), chap. 1. Towle's recent study examines history stories in comics, not the history of the medium. For examples of unsubstantiated negative judgments about this subgenre, see Gifford, International Book of Comics (n. 11), pp. 172-73; Reitberger and Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy (n. 9), p. 139;Wright, Comic Book Nation (n. 11), pp. 27-28, 61.
53. That 300,000 copies of True Comics sold out in ten days was reported in "Cartoon Magazine for Children Big Success," Pub. Weekly, 8 March 1941, p. 1127, which also noted that a run of 40,000 for Canada under the title True Picture Magazine was selling well, and the publisher was printing 10,000 more of True Comics and 25,000 more of its Canadian counterpart. Ron Goulart, "True Comics," in Encyclopedia of American Comics (n. 11), p. 369, includes some information about its syndication in newspapers. There is now a useful history of the books available at http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/blakel.html (accessed 9 November 2003), "William E. Blake, Jr. Collection of True Life 1940s Era Comics." The quotation from publisher George J. Hecht comes from an interview in the late 1970s with William E. Blake, Jr., and was presented in an unpublished lecture from 1980 now posted on the internet; see Blake, "A View of History: True Comics, 1941-1945," at http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/blake2.html (accessed 9 November 2003).
54. That 300,000 copies of True Comics sold out in ten days was reported in "Cartoon Magazine for Children Big Success," Pub. Weekly, 8 March 1941, p. 1127, which also noted that a run of 40,000 for Canada under the title True Picture Magazine was selling well, and the publisher was printing 10,000 more of True Comics and 25,000 more of its Canadian counterpart. Ron Goulart, "True Comics," in Encyclopedia of American Comics (n. 11), p. 369, includes some information about its syndication in newspapers. There is now a useful history of the books available at http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/blakel.html (accessed 9 November 2003), "William E. Blake, Jr. Collection of True Life 1940s Era Comics." The quotation from publisher George J. Hecht comes from an interview in the late 1970s with William E. Blake, Jr., and was presented in an unpublished lecture from 1980 now posted on the internet; see Blake, "A View of History: True Comics, 1941-1945," at http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/blake2.html (accessed 9 November 2003).
55. That 300,000 copies of True Comics sold out in ten days was reported in "Cartoon Magazine for Children Big Success," Pub. Weekly, 8 March 1941, p. 1127, which also noted that a run of 40,000 for Canada under the title True Picture Magazine was selling well, and the publisher was printing 10,000 more of True Comics and 25,000 more of its Canadian counterpart. Ron Goulart, "True Comics," in Encyclopedia of American Comics (n. 11), p. 369, includes some information about its syndication in newspapers. There is now a useful history of the books available at http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/blakel.html (accessed 9 November 2003), "William E. Blake, Jr. Collection of True Life 1940s Era Comics." The quotation from publisher George J. Hecht comes from an interview in the late 1970s with William E. Blake, Jr., and was presented in an unpublished lecture from 1980 now posted on the internet; see Blake, "A View of History: True Comics, 1941-1945," at http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/blake2.html (accessed 9 November 2003).
56. Real Fact was introduced in 1946 and lasted twenty-one issues. Science Comics published its only five issues between January and September 1946. Four numbers of Marvels of Science were published from March through June 1946. In 1947, Picture Stories from Science folded after its second issue.
57. The circulation of 750,000 was reported in "Superman Scores," Business Week, 18 April 1942, pp. 54-56. The same article also noted that "advertisers have not yet realized the possibilities of these magazines for goods aimed at the juvenile demand" (p. 56).
58. These numbers are taken from the records of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. As the ABC allows only hand copying of data from its microfilms, they were transcribed by Russ Maheras and then posted on the Internet. See http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Comics/About%20Comics/Business/ Top%20Comics%20and%20Publishers/Comic%20Book%20Circulation%20Data (accessed 9 November 2003).
59. Nye, Unembarrassed Muse (n. 11), p. 239. See also Gordon, Comic Strips (n. 11), pp. 139-51, on World War II, with pp. 139-41 providing data on the reading habits and comics purchases of service personnel.
60. Nye, Unembarrassed Muse (n. 11), p. 239. See also Gordon, Comic Strips (n. 11), pp. 139-51, on World War II, with pp. 139-41 providing data on the reading habits and comics purchases of service personnel.
61. Furthermore, they had no lock on the market, as did later classroom comics - specially the Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact comic books in the 1960s, which were offered by subscription to students in Roman Catholic schools, with nuns and other teachers taking the subscriptions and distributing the comics. At least two medical history stories appeared in Treasure Chest: 'Yellow Jack: The Story of Dr. Walter Reed" (vol. 23, no. 16, 4 April 1968) and "Man against Disease: The Story of Louis Pasteur" (vol. 24, no. 10, 23 January 1969). David Gaudette provided information about how Treasure Chest was circulated.
62. Furthermore, they had no lock on the market, as did later classroom comics - specially the Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact comic books in the 1960s, which were offered by subscription to students in Roman Catholic schools, with nuns and other teachers taking the subscriptions and distributing the comics. At least two medical history stories appeared in Treasure Chest: 'Yellow Jack: The Story of Dr. Walter Reed" (vol. 23, no. 16, 4 April 1968) and "Man against Disease: The Story of Louis Pasteur" (vol. 24, no. 10, 23 January 1969). David Gaudette provided information about how Treasure Chest was circulated.
63. An interesting account of the secular humanism that characterizes this venture is given in Blake, "View of History" (n. 21). On Hecht, see also Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), p. 31.
64. An interesting account of the secular humanism that characterizes this venture is given in Blake, "View of History" (n. 21). On Hecht, see also Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11), p. 31.
65. Their dominance was challenged first by an anticomics crusade that included book-burnings in schoolyard bonfires in the summer of 1948 (Goulart, Great History [n. 20], p. 263), and then by the fierce attacks of the psychologist Fredric Wertham culminating in his book, Seduction of the Innocent (New York: Rinehart, 1954). Even the U.S. Congress held major public hearings on the dangers of comic books. The industry was seriously hurt, and it established self-censorship with an industry code of approval; see Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11). By the 1950s, the rise of television was deeply undercutting the commanding position of comic books in young people's entertainment. In the mid-1950s comics still circulated in large numbers, but they were no longer such a ubiquitous feature of American popular culture in general; gradually the industry became more fragmented, and its books were diversified into distinct submarkets and subcultures so that none was universally appreciated as an icon of general culture. In time, comics disappeared from the newsstands and lost their preteen and teenage mail subscribers, with distribution being reorganized into specialized comic book stores, patronized by devoted fans who were primarily men in their late teens and twenties.
66. Their dominance was challenged first by an anticomics crusade that included book-burnings in schoolyard bonfires in the summer of 1948 (Goulart, Great History [n. 20], p. 263), and then by the fierce attacks of the psychologist Fredric Wertham culminating in his book, Seduction of the Innocent (New York: Rinehart, 1954). Even the U.S. Congress held major public hearings on the dangers of comic books. The industry was seriously hurt, and it established self-censorship with an industry code of approval; see Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11). By the 1950s, the rise of television was deeply undercutting the commanding position of comic books in young people's entertainment. In the mid-1950s comics still circulated in large numbers, but they were no longer such a ubiquitous feature of American popular culture in general; gradually the industry became more fragmented, and its books were diversified into distinct submarkets and subcultures so that none was universally appreciated as an icon of general culture. In time, comics disappeared from the newsstands and lost their preteen and teenage mail subscribers, with distribution being reorganized into specialized comic book stores, patronized by devoted fans who were primarily men in their late teens and twenties.
67. Their dominance was challenged first by an anticomics crusade that included book-burnings in schoolyard bonfires in the summer of 1948 (Goulart, Great History [n. 20], p. 263), and then by the fierce attacks of the psychologist Fredric Wertham culminating in his book, Seduction of the Innocent (New York: Rinehart, 1954). Even the U.S. Congress held major public hearings on the dangers of comic books. The industry was seriously hurt, and it established self-censorship with an industry code of approval; see Nyberg, Seal of Approval (n. 11). By the 1950s, the rise of television was deeply undercutting the commanding position of comic books in young people's entertainment. In the mid-1950s comics still circulated in large numbers, but they were no longer such a ubiquitous feature of American popular culture in general; gradually the industry became more fragmented, and its books were diversified into distinct submarkets and subcultures so that none was universally appreciated as an icon of general culture. In time, comics disappeared from the newsstands and lost their preteen and teenage mail subscribers, with distribution being reorganized into specialized comic book stores, patronized by devoted fans who were primarily men in their late teens and twenties.
68. This section is based on the roughly sixty medical history stories that I have found in comic books of the 1940s. Since few comics are held in libraries (except at Michigan State University) and individual stories are rarely catalogued separately, it is impossible to review the corpus systematically to find them all. After years of sleuthing, and with inquiries reaching a point of diminishing returns, I am confident that I have found the overwhelming majority of the relevant examples and that the main features of the phenomenon can be discerned with confidence, even if a few examples may have been overlooked. Note that any numerical statements in this section (e.g., "Sister Kenny has three stories" or "Pasteur and Reed are most popular") should not be interpreted as absolute determinations. As a comprehensive listing of medical history stories in comic books is beyond the scope of this article, I am publishing an inventory separately; see Hansen, "True-Adventure Comic Books and American Popular Culture in the 1940s: An Annotated Research Bibliography of the Medical Heroes," forthcoming in the International Journal of Comic Art, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 2004).
69. Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét, A Book of Americans (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1933).
70. Harold de Lay (artist), "Yellow Jack: How the Cause of Yellow Fever Was Discovered," True Comics, no. 1 (April 1941): 37-43. Wartime patriotism and militarism probably affected comic books' choice of subjects, but nationalism should not be overemphasized. For example, two issues later, True Comics, no. 3 (August 1941) had a cover story entitled "Death Fighter" about Robert Koch. Even as late as May 1943, a major story devoted much attention, all of it favorable, to Loeffler, Behring, and Koch: Gus Herman (artist), "The Conquest of Diphtheria," Real Life Comics, no. 11 (May 1943): 30-36.
71. Harold de Lay (artist), "Yellow Jack: How the Cause of Yellow Fever Was Discovered," True Comics, no. 1 (April 1941): 37-43. Wartime patriotism and militarism probably affected comic books' choice of subjects, but nationalism should not be overemphasized. For example, two issues later, True Comics, no. 3 (August 1941) had a cover story entitled "Death Fighter" about Robert Koch. Even as late as May 1943, a major story devoted much attention, all of it favorable, to Loeffler, Behring, and Koch: Gus Herman (artist), "The Conquest of Diphtheria," Real Life Comics, no. 11 (May 1943): 30-36.
72. Harold de Lay (artist), "Yellow Jack: How the Cause of Yellow Fever Was Discovered," True Comics, no. 1 (April 1941): 37-43. Wartime patriotism and militarism probably affected comic books' choice of subjects, but nationalism should not be overemphasized. For example, two issues later, True Comics, no. 3 (August 1941) had a cover story entitled "Death Fighter" about Robert Koch. Even as late as May 1943, a major story devoted much attention, all of it favorable, to Loeffler, Behring, and Koch: Gus Herman (artist), "The Conquest of Diphtheria," Real Life Comics, no. 11 (May 1943): 30-36.
73. "The Conquest of Yellow Fever," Real Life Comics, no. 19 (September 1944): 7-14; cover art by Alex Schomburg.
74. Ibid., p. 14. Similar stories appeared as well in two specialized comic books: Rudy Palais (artist), "Walter Reed: The Man Who Conquered Yellow Fever," Science Comics, no. 2 (March 1946): 26-31; Morris Nelson Sachs (writer) and Don Cameron (artist), "The Conquest of Yellow Fever," Picture Stories from Science, 2 (Summer 1947): 29-32. While these latter two magazines maintained the focus indicated by their titles and did not include other kinds of adventures, they were nonetheless commercial ventures for newsstand distribution, not schoolbooks. And they both included a fair amount of medical history - including Louis Pasteur, of course.
75. Ibid., p. 14. Similar stories appeared as well in two specialized comic books: Rudy Palais (artist), "Walter Reed: The Man Who Conquered Yellow Fever," Science Comics, no. 2 (March 1946): 26-31; Morris Nelson Sachs (writer) and Don Cameron (artist), "The Conquest of Yellow Fever," Picture Stories from Science, 2 (Summer 1947): 29-32. While these latter two magazines maintained the focus indicated by their titles and did not include other kinds of adventures, they were nonetheless commercial ventures for newsstand distribution, not schoolbooks. And they both included a fair amount of medical history - including Louis Pasteur, of course.
76. Ibid., p. 14. Similar stories appeared as well in two specialized comic books: Rudy Palais (artist), "Walter Reed: The Man Who Conquered Yellow Fever," Science Comics, no. 2 (March 1946): 26-31; Morris Nelson Sachs (writer) and Don Cameron (artist), "The Conquest of Yellow Fever," Picture Stories from Science, 2 (Summer 1947): 29-32. While these latter two magazines maintained the focus indicated by their titles and did not include other kinds of adventures, they were nonetheless commercial ventures for newsstand distribution, not schoolbooks. And they both included a fair amount of medical history - including Louis Pasteur, of course.
77. Gary Gray (artist), "Louis Pasteur," Trail Blazers, no. 4 (October 1942): 11-19.
78. It seems likely that these drawings are heavily indebted to the 1936 film, as some resemblances are striking, even with a strange displacement. While the comic book version of the young Pasteur in courtship kissing his future wife does not look like either the film Pasteur or the historical Pasteur, the drawing has a strong similarity to the color still on one of the lobby cards of the film, where we see the young Dr. Jean Martel kissing Pasteur's daughter Annette, his future wife: in the two images, the placement of their heads for the kiss is identical, as are the man's shirt, tie, jacket, and hairstyle; and both women are blonde with ringlets.
79. "Louis Pasteur and the Unseen Enemy," Real Heroes, no. 7 (November 1942): 20-25.
80. The original drawing for a four-frame Pasteur sequence on the rabies breakthrough in the author's collection is dated 16 March, but with no year indicated. I have not yet been able to locate this Pasteur sequence in a newspaper.
81. Morris Nelson Sachs (writer) and Don Cameron (artist), "Fighting Germs with Germs," Picture Stones from Science, no. 2 (Summer 1947): 25-28.
82. Nathan Schachner, "Healer of Men - A True Story of a Great Scientist," Real Life Comics, no. 44 (May 1948): 28-30.
83. Ibid., p. 30.
84. Ibid., p. 30. Schachner published at least three other similar textual stories in comic books: "The Magic Mold" (about Dr. Ernest Chain, who shared a 1945 Nobel Prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for developing penicillin), Real Life Comics, no. 31 (May 1946): 26-28; "Master of Medicine - A True Story of Scientific Achievement" (about Dr. Simon Flexner and the establishment of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research), ibid., 41 (September 1947): 30-32; and a story about Franz Boas: "A Foe of Prejudice," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 22-24. Schachner was a chemist who had done work in public health and in chemical warfare. He then became in turn a lawyer, a very successful science-fiction writer in the 1930s, and a historical biographer with books on Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the founding fathers. He also wrote The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1948). This biographical information on Nathaniel Schachner (1895-1955) was drawn from a Web site, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, "an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," edited by AI von Ruff: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nat_Schachner (accessed 9 November 2003).
85. Ibid., p. 30. Schachner published at least three other similar textual stories in comic books: "The Magic Mold" (about Dr. Ernest Chain, who shared a 1945 Nobel Prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for developing penicillin), Real Life Comics, no. 31 (May 1946): 26-28; "Master of Medicine - A True Story of Scientific Achievement" (about Dr. Simon Flexner and the establishment of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research), ibid., 41 (September 1947): 30-32; and a story about Franz Boas: "A Foe of Prejudice," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 22-24. Schachner was a chemist who had done work in public health and in chemical warfare. He then became in turn a lawyer, a very successful science-fiction writer in the 1930s, and a historical biographer with books on Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the founding fathers. He also wrote The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1948). This biographical information on Nathaniel Schachner (1895-1955) was drawn from a Web site, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, "an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," edited by AI von Ruff: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nat_Schachner (accessed 9 November 2003).
86. Ibid., p. 30. Schachner published at least three other similar textual stories in comic books: "The Magic Mold" (about Dr. Ernest Chain, who shared a 1945 Nobel Prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for developing penicillin), Real Life Comics, no. 31 (May 1946): 26-28; "Master of Medicine - A True Story of Scientific Achievement" (about Dr. Simon Flexner and the establishment of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research), ibid., 41 (September 1947): 30-32; and a story about Franz Boas: "A Foe of Prejudice," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 22-24. Schachner was a chemist who had done work in public health and in chemical warfare. He then became in turn a lawyer, a very successful science-fiction writer in the 1930s, and a historical biographer with books on Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the founding fathers. He also wrote The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1948). This biographical information on Nathaniel Schachner (1895-1955) was drawn from a Web site, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, "an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," edited by AI von Ruff: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nat_Schachner (accessed 9 November 2003).
87. Ibid., p. 30. Schachner published at least three other similar textual stories in comic books: "The Magic Mold" (about Dr. Ernest Chain, who shared a 1945 Nobel Prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for developing penicillin), Real Life Comics, no. 31 (May 1946): 26-28; "Master of Medicine - A True Story of Scientific Achievement" (about Dr. Simon Flexner and the establishment of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research), ibid., 41 (September 1947): 30-32; and a story about Franz Boas: "A Foe of Prejudice," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 22-24. Schachner was a chemist who had done work in public health and in chemical warfare. He then became in turn a lawyer, a very successful science-fiction writer in the 1930s, and a historical biographer with books on Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the founding fathers. He also wrote The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1948). This biographical information on Nathaniel Schachner (1895-1955) was drawn from a Web site, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, "an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," edited by AI von Ruff: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nat_Schachner (accessed 9 November 2003).
88. Ibid., p. 30. Schachner published at least three other similar textual stories in comic books: "The Magic Mold" (about Dr. Ernest Chain, who shared a 1945 Nobel Prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for developing penicillin), Real Life Comics, no. 31 (May 1946): 26-28; "Master of Medicine - A True Story of Scientific Achievement" (about Dr. Simon Flexner and the establishment of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research), ibid., 41 (September 1947): 30-32; and a story about Franz Boas: "A Foe of Prejudice," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 22-24. Schachner was a chemist who had done work in public health and in chemical warfare. He then became in turn a lawyer, a very successful science-fiction writer in the 1930s, and a historical biographer with books on Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the founding fathers. He also wrote The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1948). This biographical information on Nathaniel Schachner (1895-1955) was drawn from a Web site, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, "an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," edited by AI von Ruff: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nat_Schachner (accessed 9 November 2003).
89. Ibid., p. 30. Schachner published at least three other similar textual stories in comic books: "The Magic Mold" (about Dr. Ernest Chain, who shared a 1945 Nobel Prize with Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey for developing penicillin), Real Life Comics, no. 31 (May 1946): 26-28; "Master of Medicine - A True Story of Scientific Achievement" (about Dr. Simon Flexner and the establishment of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research), ibid., 41 (September 1947): 30-32; and a story about Franz Boas: "A Foe of Prejudice," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 22-24. Schachner was a chemist who had done work in public health and in chemical warfare. He then became in turn a lawyer, a very successful science-fiction writer in the 1930s, and a historical biographer with books on Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the founding fathers. He also wrote The Price of Liberty: A History of the American Jewish Committee (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1948). This biographical information on Nathaniel Schachner (1895-1955) was drawn from a Web site, Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase, "an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror," edited by AI von Ruff: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nat_Schachner (accessed 9 November 2003).
90. "The Conquest of Pain," Science Comics, no. 3 (May 1946): 23-27.
91. "The Story of Medicine," Real Life Comics, no. 17 (May 1944): 7-16; "Miracle against Pain," True Comics, no. 51 (August 1946): 26-30.
92. "The Story of Medicine," Real Life Comics, no. 17 (May 1944): 7-16; "Miracle against Pain," True Comics, no. 51 (August 1946): 26-30.
93. "Plague Vanquished," Real Heroes, no. 15 (July 1946): 30-32.
94. August M. Froehlich (artist), "Ambroise Paré: Famed Surgeon," Real Life Comics, no. 33 (July 1946): 44-48.
95. "The Story of Medicine," Real Life Comics, no. 17 (May 1944): 7-16.
96. "Dr. Edward Jenner: Plague Fighter," Real Life Comics, no. 15 (January 1944): 34-39; "Plague Vanquished" (n. 44).
97. "Dr. Edward Jenner: Plague Fighter," Real Life Comics, no. 15 (January 1944): 34-39; "Plague Vanquished" (n. 44).
98. "Catherine the Great," Real Life Comics, no. 18 (July 1944): 28-33, quotation on p. 32.
99. "Death Fighter: Dr. Robert Koch," True Comics, no. 3 (August 1941): 12-19.
100. Herman, "Conquest of Diphtheria" (n. 31).
101. Ibid., p. 36. The "Dr. Park" mentioned was William Hallock Park of the New York City Health Department, and the unspecified improvement was the introduction of a toxin-antitoxin combination. For the non-comic-book history, see Evelynn M. Hammonds, Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
102. Ibid., p. 36. The "Dr. Park" mentioned was William Hallock Park of the New York City Health Department, and the unspecified improvement was the introduction of a toxin-antitoxin combination. For the non-comic-book history, see Evelynn M. Hammonds, Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
103. "The Conquest of Malaria: Ross + Grassi = Victory!" Real Life Comics, no. 14 (November 1943): 32-37.
104. "The Discoverer of Hidden Hunger," True Comics, no. 15 (August 1942): 37-41, quotation on p. 38.
105. "The Modest Miracle," True Comics, no. 16 (September 1942): 49-53. The closing frame indicated this was "a true story based on the motion picture, 'The Modest Miracle' produced by Standard Brands Inc. in the interests of the National Nutrition Program."
106. "Stephen Smith," Real Life Comics, no. 30 (April 1946): 37-40, quotation on p. 37.
107. Ibid., p. 39.
108. Ibid., p. 40.
109. "Fever Fighter: Dr. Theobald Smith," Real Life Comics, no. 13 (September 1943): 48-53. Issue 11 of Real Life Comics had offered the conquest of diphtheria; issue 12 told of Joseph Goldberger; issue 13 had Theobald Smith; issue 14 featured Ronald Ross and Giovanni Battista Grassi; and issue 15 portrayed Edward Jenner, followed by issue 17's multicharacter "Story of Medicine" and then issue 19's yellow fever triumph.
110. "Fever Fighter" (n. 58), p. 48.
111. "Theobald Smith and Texas Fever," Science Comics, no. 5 (September 1946): 17-23, quotation on p. 17.
112. Ibid., p. 23.
113. "Conqueror of the White Plague," True Comics, no. 19 (December 1942): 54-59, quotations on p. 57.
114. Ibid., p.59.
115. The Mayo brothers garnered a rare two-part story, "The Mayo Family: Medicine's Miracle Men," True Comics, no. 25 (July 1943): 8-12; no. 26 (August 1943): 18-22. They appeared again in "The Mayo Brothers: Doctors Courageous," Real Life Comics, no. 42 (November 1947): 13-16.
116. The Mayo brothers garnered a rare two-part story, "The Mayo Family: Medicine's Miracle Men," True Comics, no. 25 (July 1943): 8-12; no. 26 (August 1943): 18-22. They appeared again in "The Mayo Brothers: Doctors Courageous," Real Life Comics, no. 42 (November 1947): 13-16.
117. The Mayo brothers garnered a rare two-part story, "The Mayo Family: Medicine's Miracle Men," True Comics, no. 25 (July 1943): 8-12; no. 26 (August 1943): 18-22. They appeared again in "The Mayo Brothers: Doctors Courageous," Real Life Comics, no. 42 (November 1947): 13-16.
118. She appeared first in "Clara Barton, Angel of the Battlefield, " Wonder Woman, no. 2 (Fall 1942): 31-34; and then in "Angel of the Battlefield," True Comics, no. 34 (April 1944): 16-22.
119. She appeared first in "Clara Barton, Angel of the Battlefield, " Wonder Woman, no. 2 (Fall 1942): 31-34; and then in "Angel of the Battlefield," True Comics, no. 34 (April 1944): 16-22.
120. "The Doctor Who Came Back: Dr. Samuel Mudd," True Comics, no. 21 (February 1943): 36-41. Hollywood's feature film about Dr. Mudd was The Prisoner of Shark Island, directed by John Ford; it opened in 1936. A radio version of the film story was broadcast on 13 August 1946.
121. "Dr. David Livingstone," It Really Happened, no. 4 (1944): 7-15.
122. "Adrift on an Ice Pan," True Comics, no. 10 (March 1942): 26-31.
123. "Balto the Heroic Husky," Heroic Comics, no. 38 (September 1946): 28-31; "Balto of Nome," Real Heroes, no. 16 (October 1946): 6-8.
124. "Balto the Heroic Husky," Heroic Comics, no. 38 (September 1946): 28-31; "Balto of Nome," Real Heroes, no. 16 (October 1946): 6-8.
125. Cavell's story appeared in Wonder Woman, no. 3 (February/March 1943): 31-34. (A Hollywood film, Nurse Edith Cavell, was released in 1939; a radio play of the same title was broadcast in 1946.) Nightingale (discussed below) had inaugurated the "Wonder Women of History" series. Barton (discussed above) was in issue 2. Nurse Lillian Wald was featured in the fourth installment of this series, as "The Mother of New York's East Side," Wonder Woman, no. 4 (April/May 1943): 31-34. A living contemporary, Sister Elizabeth Kenny (discussed below), made it into issue 8. The next medical hero in the series was Elizabeth Blackwell (discussed below). Though they appeared after the period studied in this article, two more examples of medical "wonder women" may be noted: Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, in Wonder Woman, no. 57 (February 1953): 13-15; and Florence Rena Sabin, ibid., no. 65 (April 1954): 20.
126. Cavell's story appeared in Wonder Woman, no. 3 (February/March 1943): 31-34. (A Hollywood film, Nurse Edith Cavell, was released in 1939; a radio play of the same title was broadcast in 1946.) Nightingale (discussed below) had inaugurated the "Wonder Women of History" series. Barton (discussed above) was in issue 2. Nurse Lillian Wald was featured in the fourth installment of this series, as "The Mother of New York's East Side," Wonder Woman, no. 4 (April/May 1943): 31-34. A living contemporary, Sister Elizabeth Kenny (discussed below), made it into issue 8. The next medical hero in the series was Elizabeth Blackwell (discussed below). Though they appeared after the period studied in this article, two more examples of medical "wonder women" may be noted: Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, in Wonder Woman, no. 57 (February 1953): 13-15; and Florence Rena Sabin, ibid., no. 65 (April 1954): 20.
127. Cavell's story appeared in Wonder Woman, no. 3 (February/March 1943): 31-34. (A Hollywood film, Nurse Edith Cavell, was released in 1939; a radio play of the same title was broadcast in 1946.) Nightingale (discussed below) had inaugurated the "Wonder Women of History" series. Barton (discussed above) was in issue 2. Nurse Lillian Wald was featured in the fourth installment of this series, as "The Mother of New York's East Side," Wonder Woman, no. 4 (April/May 1943): 31-34. A living contemporary, Sister Elizabeth Kenny (discussed below), made it into issue 8. The next medical hero in the series was Elizabeth Blackwell (discussed below). Though they appeared after the period studied in this article, two more examples of medical "wonder women" may be noted: Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, in Wonder Woman, no. 57 (February 1953): 13-15; and Florence Rena Sabin, ibid., no. 65 (April 1954): 20.
128. Cavell's story appeared in Wonder Woman, no. 3 (February/March 1943): 31-34. (A Hollywood film, Nurse Edith Cavell, was released in 1939; a radio play of the same title was broadcast in 1946.) Nightingale (discussed below) had inaugurated the "Wonder Women of History" series. Barton (discussed above) was in issue 2. Nurse Lillian Wald was featured in the fourth installment of this series, as "The Mother of New York's East Side," Wonder Woman, no. 4 (April/May 1943): 31-34. A living contemporary, Sister Elizabeth Kenny (discussed below), made it into issue 8. The next medical hero in the series was Elizabeth Blackwell (discussed below). Though they appeared after the period studied in this article, two more examples of medical "wonder women" may be noted: Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, in Wonder Woman, no. 57 (February 1953): 13-15; and Florence Rena Sabin, ibid., no. 65 (April 1954): 20.
129. "Canada's Pioneer Nurse: Jeanne Mance," True Comics, no. 24 (May-June 1943): 15-18, quotation on p. 15.
130. Florence Nightingale, "The Lady with the Lamp," was not surprisingly the first example in the premier issue, Wonder Woman, no. 1 (Summer 1942): 29-32. An Elizabeth Blackwell story was published in Wonder Woman, no. 19 (October 1946): 13-16.
131. Florence Nightingale, "The Lady with the Lamp," was not surprisingly the first example in the premier issue, Wonder Woman, no. 1 (Summer 1942): 29-32. An Elizabeth Blackwell story was published in Wonder Woman, no. 19 (October 1946): 13-16.
132. "First Lady of the Army Medical Corps," True Comics, no. 31 (January 1944): 30-33, quotation on p. 30. Even with her medical degree, Dr. Walker was restricted at first to nursing duties in the Civil War, though she was better skilled than some of the doctors under whom she was serving. In time her skills were recognized. In the comic book, her dress-reform interests were noted without being sensationalized, and her efforts on behalf of women's struggles for voting, entry to the professions, and so forth were highlighted. She was shown receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for her wartime service and looking back with satisfaction at what women had achieved by the end of her lifetime.
133. Canada's Dr. Norman Bethune was celebrated as "blood bank founder" in a six-page story, "They Shall Not Perish," featured on the cover of True Comics, no. 30 (December 1943), with story on pp. 14-19. (The designation is misleading; credit for the mobile blood bank or plasma transfusion unit would have been more accurate.) The story followed his career from Canada to Spain and then China, where he died from operating with a cut on his hand. Dr. Chung was featured in Real Heroes, no. 9 (February/March 1943): 9-14, as "Mom Chung and Her 509 'Fair-Haired Foster Sons.'" She was probably the first Asian American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She received substantial media coverage in her long career, but was perhaps more famous outside medicine for raising funds and support for American soldiers who helped in the Chinese struggle against the Japanese invasion, before and during World War II. Since she was unmarried, the boys were usually called her "bastard sons" - renamed here as "foster sons" for children's viewing. See also Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, "Was Mom Chung a 'Sister Lesbian'? Asian American Gender Experimentation and Interracial Homoeroticism," J. Women's Hist., 2001, 13: 58-82; and her forthcoming book, Dr. "Mom" Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Forgotten Wartime Celebrity (Berkeley: University of California Press, Fall 2004).
134. Canada's Dr. Norman Bethune was celebrated as "blood bank founder" in a six-page story, "They Shall Not Perish," featured on the cover of True Comics, no. 30 (December 1943), with story on pp. 14-19. (The designation is misleading; credit for the mobile blood bank or plasma transfusion unit would have been more accurate.) The story followed his career from Canada to Spain and then China, where he died from operating with a cut on his hand. Dr. Chung was featured in Real Heroes, no. 9 (February/March 1943): 9-14, as "Mom Chung and Her 509 'Fair-Haired Foster Sons.'" She was probably the first Asian American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She received substantial media coverage in her long career, but was perhaps more famous outside medicine for raising funds and support for American soldiers who helped in the Chinese struggle against the Japanese invasion, before and during World War II. Since she was unmarried, the boys were usually called her "bastard sons" - renamed here as "foster sons" for children's viewing. See also Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, "Was Mom Chung a 'Sister Lesbian'? Asian American Gender Experimentation and Interracial Homoeroticism," J. Women's Hist., 2001, 13: 58-82; and her forthcoming book, Dr. "Mom" Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Forgotten Wartime Celebrity (Berkeley: University of California Press, Fall 2004).
135. Canada's Dr. Norman Bethune was celebrated as "blood bank founder" in a six-page story, "They Shall Not Perish," featured on the cover of True Comics, no. 30 (December 1943), with story on pp. 14-19. (The designation is misleading; credit for the mobile blood bank or plasma transfusion unit would have been more accurate.) The story followed his career from Canada to Spain and then China, where he died from operating with a cut on his hand. Dr. Chung was featured in Real Heroes, no. 9 (February/March 1943): 9-14, as "Mom Chung and Her 509 'Fair-Haired Foster Sons.'" She was probably the first Asian American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She received substantial media coverage in her long career, but was perhaps more famous outside medicine for raising funds and support for American soldiers who helped in the Chinese struggle against the Japanese invasion, before and during World War II. Since she was unmarried, the boys were usually called her "bastard sons" - renamed here as "foster sons" for children's viewing. See also Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, "Was Mom Chung a 'Sister Lesbian'? Asian American Gender Experimentation and Interracial Homoeroticism," J. Women's Hist., 2001, 13: 58-82; and her forthcoming book, Dr. "Mom" Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Forgotten Wartime Celebrity (Berkeley: University of California Press, Fall 2004).
136. Canada's Dr. Norman Bethune was celebrated as "blood bank founder" in a six-page story, "They Shall Not Perish," featured on the cover of True Comics, no. 30 (December 1943), with story on pp. 14-19. (The designation is misleading; credit for the mobile blood bank or plasma transfusion unit would have been more accurate.) The story followed his career from Canada to Spain and then China, where he died from operating with a cut on his hand. Dr. Chung was featured in Real Heroes, no. 9 (February/March 1943): 9-14, as "Mom Chung and Her 509 'Fair-Haired Foster Sons.'" She was probably the first Asian American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She received substantial media coverage in her long career, but was perhaps more famous outside medicine for raising funds and support for American soldiers who helped in the Chinese struggle against the Japanese invasion, before and during World War II. Since she was unmarried, the boys were usually called her "bastard sons" - renamed here as "foster sons" for children's viewing. See also Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, "Was Mom Chung a 'Sister Lesbian'? Asian American Gender Experimentation and Interracial Homoeroticism," J. Women's Hist., 2001, 13: 58-82; and her forthcoming book, Dr. "Mom" Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Forgotten Wartime Celebrity (Berkeley: University of California Press, Fall 2004).
137. "Penicillin," True Comics, no. 41 (December 1944): 18-22; "White Magic: The Miracle of Penicillin," Science Comics, no. 1 (January 1946): 9-15. Not surprisingly, Science Comics focused primarily on the laboratory work, explaining much more about molds and bacteria, the difficulties of industrial production, and the need to develop strains that would grow submerged instead of just on the surface of the nutrient medium, and it gave less attention to the human-interest side of penicillin's history.
138. "Penicillin," True Comics, no. 41 (December 1944): 18-22; "White Magic: The Miracle of Penicillin," Science Comics, no. 1 (January 1946): 9-15. Not surprisingly, Science Comics focused primarily on the laboratory work, explaining much more about molds and bacteria, the difficulties of industrial production, and the need to develop strains that would grow submerged instead of just on the surface of the nutrient medium, and it gave less attention to the human-interest side of penicillin's history.
139. "Dr. Alexander Fleming: His Penicillin Will Save More Lives than War Can Spend," Time, 15 May 1944, cover and pp. 27-30.
140. David P. Adams, "The Penicillin Mystique and the Popular Press (1935-1950)," Pharm. Hist., 1984, 26: 134-42, is an important study of coverage in about ten magazines (not including Life), but does not attend to newspaper stories; some of these are cited in his later book, which includes much of interest on the public's image of doctors, scientists, and medical research: The Greatest Good to the Greatest Number: Penicillin Rationing on the American Home Front, 1940-1945 (New York: Lang, 1991).
141. David P. Adams, "The Penicillin Mystique and the Popular Press (1935-1950)," Pharm. Hist., 1984, 26: 134-42, is an important study of coverage in about ten magazines (not including Life), but does not attend to newspaper stories; some of these are cited in his later book, which includes much of interest on the public's image of doctors, scientists, and medical research: The Greatest Good to the Greatest Number: Penicillin Rationing on the American Home Front, 1940-1945 (New York: Lang, 1991).
142. "The Fight Against Infantile Paralysis," True Comics, no. 32 (February 1944): 26-29, quotation on p. 26.
143. Ibid., p. 29.
144. "Australian Bush Nurse," Real Heroes, no. 5 (July 1942): 22-27; "Sister Elizabeth Kenny," Wonder Woman, no. 8 (Spring 1944): 32-35; "Sister Kenny," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 14-20. The popularity of the Kenny story (high in frequency along with those about Pasteur and Walter Reed) and the substantial number of pages she was given would appear to be due to several factors, including the public's familiarity with infantile paralysis, the attention her work had received in the news media, the large role that children play in her story, and the fact that her approach was an active regimen of massage, exercise, and hot packs - more emotionally appealing than the competing immobilization technique. While most of the comic book stories in this study followed appearances in other media and were often derived from books, films, and radio broadcasts, the pattern is a little different here: The initial comic book story was dated July 1942. A radio drama followed in November 1942. The next year saw the publication of Kenny's autobiographical book, And They Shall Walk: The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, written in collaboration with Martha Ostenso (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943). The second comic book story appeared in 1944. Hollywood's film, starring Rosalind Russell, was screened in 1946. The third comic book appearance followed in 1947.
145. "Australian Bush Nurse," Real Heroes, no. 5 (July 1942): 22-27; "Sister Elizabeth Kenny," Wonder Woman, no. 8 (Spring 1944): 32-35; "Sister Kenny," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 14-20. The popularity of the Kenny story (high in frequency along with those about Pasteur and Walter Reed) and the substantial number of pages she was given would appear to be due to several factors, including the public's familiarity with infantile paralysis, the attention her work had received in the news media, the large role that children play in her story, and the fact that her approach was an active regimen of massage, exercise, and hot packs - more emotionally appealing than the competing immobilization technique. While most of the comic book stories in this study followed appearances in other media and were often derived from books, films, and radio broadcasts, the pattern is a little different here: The initial comic book story was dated July 1942. A radio drama followed in November 1942. The next year saw the publication of Kenny's autobiographical book, And They Shall Walk: The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, written in collaboration with Martha Ostenso (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943). The second comic book story appeared in 1944. Hollywood's film, starring Rosalind Russell, was screened in 1946. The third comic book appearance followed in 1947.
146. "Australian Bush Nurse," Real Heroes, no. 5 (July 1942): 22-27; "Sister Elizabeth Kenny," Wonder Woman, no. 8 (Spring 1944): 32-35; "Sister Kenny," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 14-20. The popularity of the Kenny story (high in frequency along with those about Pasteur and Walter Reed) and the substantial number of pages she was given would appear to be due to several factors, including the public's familiarity with infantile paralysis, the attention her work had received in the news media, the large role that children play in her story, and the fact that her approach was an active regimen of massage, exercise, and hot packs - more emotionally appealing than the competing immobilization technique. While most of the comic book stories in this study followed appearances in other media and were often derived from books, films, and radio broadcasts, the pattern is a little different here: The initial comic book story was dated July 1942. A radio drama followed in November 1942. The next year saw the publication of Kenny's autobiographical book, And They Shall Walk: The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, written in collaboration with Martha Ostenso (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943). The second comic book story appeared in 1944. Hollywood's film, starring Rosalind Russell, was screened in 1946. The third comic book appearance followed in 1947.
147. "Australian Bush Nurse," Real Heroes, no. 5 (July 1942): 22-27; "Sister Elizabeth Kenny," Wonder Woman, no. 8 (Spring 1944): 32-35; "Sister Kenny," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 14-20. The popularity of the Kenny story (high in frequency along with those about Pasteur and Walter Reed) and the substantial number of pages she was given would appear to be due to several factors, including the public's familiarity with infantile paralysis, the attention her work had received in the news media, the large role that children play in her story, and the fact that her approach was an active regimen of massage, exercise, and hot packs - more emotionally appealing than the competing immobilization technique. While most of the comic book stories in this study followed appearances in other media and were often derived from books, films, and radio broadcasts, the pattern is a little different here: The initial comic book story was dated July 1942. A radio drama followed in November 1942. The next year saw the publication of Kenny's autobiographical book, And They Shall Walk: The Life Story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, written in collaboration with Martha Ostenso (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943). The second comic book story appeared in 1944. Hollywood's film, starring Rosalind Russell, was screened in 1946. The third comic book appearance followed in 1947.
148. This general pattern of overcoming obstacles is, of course, not unique to de Kruif; it is also the structure of most hero tales in folk cultures around the world. See, for example, Roger D. Abrahams, "Some Varieties of Heroes in America," J. Folklore Inst., 1966, 3:341-62.
149. In 1945 Don Molony was a seventeen-year-old hospital apprentice in the Coast Guard, with the ambition of becoming a doctor. By chance, he happened to be nearby when a plane crashed into the Empire State Building. (The crash was on 28 July 1945; in the comic, it is dated only as shortly before V-J Day.) Grabbing first-aid supplies from a drug store, he climbed seventy-nine stories to help the injured. For this he received national acclaim and a scholarship to medical school at the University of Michigan: see Charles M. Quinlan (artist), "Teen Age Trues," Real Life Comics, no. 41 (September 1947): 28-29.
150. Quick action by Dean Shore, a twenty-two-year-old student at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, to stop severe bleeding saved the life of a workman who had fallen into a pile of broken glass: see "Broken Glass," New Heroic Comics, no. 72 (May 1952): 27-28.
151. Nurse Esther McElveen was the cover subject for "Nurse Without Fear," New Heroic Comics, no. 44 (September 1947): 32-33. She saved thirty-four patients from a burning sanatorium in South Carolina, but then lost her own life in the effort to save more.
152. "The Wizard of Chickenology," True Comics, no. 53 (October 1946): 36-37. I am grateful to the family of the late Doris Gnauck White for sharing copies of newspaper and magazine clippings documenting her youthful renown.
153. Since these examples all appeared in 1946 or later, it seems possible that they represent a shift away from stories about the big names of history. We lack information as to whether this might have been because the audience was no longer so responsive to heroes of the past, or whether the publishers just ran out of examples. These are also the years in which the genre of true-adventure comics was in decline. Three other examples of this celebration of medical heroism in daily life may be noted: Pfc. Desmond Doss was a Seventh-Day Adventist and conscientious objector who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery as a medic; see "Hero Without a Gun," True Comics, no. 48 (April 1946): 1-5. Dr. Harry Archer was a socially prominent physician who rushed to all of New York City's three-alarm fires to aid the injured firemen without accepting a fee; see "Odd Jobs: The Fireman's Doctor," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 45-47. Pat O'Connor of the Bronx Zoo, America's only woman zoo doctor, was featured in "Odd Jobs: Lady at the Zoo," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 33-35.
154. Since these examples all appeared in 1946 or later, it seems possible that they represent a shift away from stories about the big names of history. We lack information as to whether this might have been because the audience was no longer so responsive to heroes of the past, or whether the publishers just ran out of examples. These are also the years in which the genre of true-adventure comics was in decline. Three other examples of this celebration of medical heroism in daily life may be noted: Pfc. Desmond Doss was a Seventh-Day Adventist and conscientious objector who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery as a medic; see "Hero Without a Gun," True Comics, no. 48 (April 1946): 1-5. Dr. Harry Archer was a socially prominent physician who rushed to all of New York City's three-alarm fires to aid the injured firemen without accepting a fee; see "Odd Jobs: The Fireman's Doctor," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 45-47. Pat O'Connor of the Bronx Zoo, America's only woman zoo doctor, was featured in "Odd Jobs: Lady at the Zoo," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 33-35.
155. Since these examples all appeared in 1946 or later, it seems possible that they represent a shift away from stories about the big names of history. We lack information as to whether this might have been because the audience was no longer so responsive to heroes of the past, or whether the publishers just ran out of examples. These are also the years in which the genre of true-adventure comics was in decline. Three other examples of this celebration of medical heroism in daily life may be noted: Pfc. Desmond Doss was a Seventh-Day Adventist and conscientious objector who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery as a medic; see "Hero Without a Gun," True Comics, no. 48 (April 1946): 1-5. Dr. Harry Archer was a socially prominent physician who rushed to all of New York City's three-alarm fires to aid the injured firemen without accepting a fee; see "Odd Jobs: The Fireman's Doctor," It Really Happened, no. 6 (December 1946): 45-47. Pat O'Connor of the Bronx Zoo, America's only woman zoo doctor, was featured in "Odd Jobs: Lady at the Zoo," It Really Happened, no. 8 (April 1947): 33-35.
156. John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance; Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). As Judith Yaross Lee observed: "Studies of popular culture have taught us to seek the clearest expression of a culture's values and assumptions in its formula literature: the highly predictable stories, factual and fictional, appearing in periodicals and books aimed at a mass audience. The stereotyped characters and plots of formula stories reveal the broadly shared attitudes that get lost amid the carefully delineated, unique characters and incidents of high literature" (Judith Yaross Lee, "Scientists and Inventors as Literary Heroes: Introduction," in Beyond the Two Cultures: Essays on Science, Technology, and Literature, ed. Joseph W. Slade and Judith Yaross Lee [Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990], p. 256). See also Paul Theerman, "National Images of Science: British and American Views of Scientific Heroes in the Early Nineteenth Century," ibid., pp. 259-74.
157. John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance; Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). As Judith Yaross Lee observed: "Studies of popular culture have taught us to seek the clearest expression of a culture's values and assumptions in its formula literature: the highly predictable stories, factual and fictional, appearing in periodicals and books aimed at a mass audience. The stereotyped characters and plots of formula stories reveal the broadly shared attitudes that get lost amid the carefully delineated, unique characters and incidents of high literature" (Judith Yaross Lee, "Scientists and Inventors as Literary Heroes: Introduction," in Beyond the Two Cultures: Essays on Science, Technology, and Literature, ed. Joseph W. Slade and Judith Yaross Lee [Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990], p. 256). See also Paul Theerman, "National Images of Science: British and American Views of Scientific Heroes in the Early Nineteenth Century," ibid., pp. 259-74.
158. John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance; Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). As Judith Yaross Lee observed: "Studies of popular culture have taught us to seek the clearest expression of a culture's values and assumptions in its formula literature: the highly predictable stories, factual and fictional, appearing in periodicals and books aimed at a mass audience. The stereotyped characters and plots of formula stories reveal the broadly shared attitudes that get lost amid the carefully delineated, unique characters and incidents of high literature" (Judith Yaross Lee, "Scientists and Inventors as Literary Heroes: Introduction," in Beyond the Two Cultures: Essays on Science, Technology, and Literature, ed. Joseph W. Slade and Judith Yaross Lee [Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990], p. 256). See also Paul Theerman, "National Images of Science: British and American Views of Scientific Heroes in the Early Nineteenth Century," ibid., pp. 259-74.
159. John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987); Marcel C. LaFollette, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). LaFollette's chap. 6 is especially strong on magazine images and on the stereotypes of men and women scientists. These two books are important and perceptive; they both, however, discuss comics only in terms of George Basalla's results (discussed below). Other interesting studies of science popularization in this era include David J. Rhees, "A New Voice for Science: Science Service under Edwin E. Slosson, 1921-29" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1979), available at the Smithsonian Web site http://americanhistory.ai.edu/scienceservice/thesis/ (accessed 16 November 2003); Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A. History of Images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
160. John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987); Marcel C. LaFollette, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). LaFollette's chap. 6 is especially strong on magazine images and on the stereotypes of men and women scientists. These two books are important and perceptive; they both, however, discuss comics only in terms of George Basalla's results (discussed below). Other interesting studies of science popularization in this era include David J. Rhees, "A New Voice for Science: Science Service under Edwin E. Slosson, 1921-29" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1979), available at the Smithsonian Web site http://americanhistory.ai.edu/scienceservice/thesis/ (accessed 16 November 2003); Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A. History of Images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
161. John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987); Marcel C. LaFollette, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). LaFollette's chap. 6 is especially strong on magazine images and on the stereotypes of men and women scientists. These two books are important and perceptive; they both, however, discuss comics only in terms of George Basalla's results (discussed below). Other interesting studies of science popularization in this era include David J. Rhees, "A New Voice for Science: Science Service under Edwin E. Slosson, 1921-29" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1979), available at the Smithsonian Web site http://americanhistory.ai.edu/scienceservice/thesis/ (accessed 16 November 2003); Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A. History of Images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
162. John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987); Marcel C. LaFollette, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). LaFollette's chap. 6 is especially strong on magazine images and on the stereotypes of men and women scientists. These two books are important and perceptive; they both, however, discuss comics only in terms of George Basalla's results (discussed below). Other interesting studies of science popularization in this era include David J. Rhees, "A New Voice for Science: Science Service under Edwin E. Slosson, 1921-29" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1979), available at the Smithsonian Web site http://americanhistory.ai.edu/scienceservice/thesis/ (accessed 16 November 2003); Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A. History of Images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
163. The interesting and substantial article by Anne Hudson Jones, "Medicine and the Physician," in Inge, Handbook (n. 11), 2: 721-44, states that "comic books have featured few practicing physicians as heroes, although some use scientist-physicians, such as Dr. Andrew Bryant, Dr. Hugo Strange, and Dr. X" (p. 724). Medical ideas in popular culture are also examined in Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996); Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ronald G. Walters, ed., Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Terra Ziporyn, Disease in the Popular American Press: The Case of Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever, and Syphilis, 1870-1920 (New York: Greenwood, 1988).
164. The interesting and substantial article by Anne Hudson Jones, "Medicine and the Physician," in Inge, Handbook (n. 11), 2: 721-44, states that "comic books have featured few practicing physicians as heroes, although some use scientist-physicians, such as Dr. Andrew Bryant, Dr. Hugo Strange, and Dr. X" (p. 724). Medical ideas in popular culture are also examined in Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996); Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ronald G. Walters, ed., Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Terra Ziporyn, Disease in the Popular American Press: The Case of Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever, and Syphilis, 1870-1920 (New York: Greenwood, 1988).
165. The interesting and substantial article by Anne Hudson Jones, "Medicine and the Physician," in Inge, Handbook (n. 11), 2: 721-44, states that "comic books have featured few practicing physicians as heroes, although some use scientist-physicians, such as Dr. Andrew Bryant, Dr. Hugo Strange, and Dr. X" (p. 724). Medical ideas in popular culture are also examined in Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996); Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ronald G. Walters, ed., Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Terra Ziporyn, Disease in the Popular American Press: The Case of Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever, and Syphilis, 1870-1920 (New York: Greenwood, 1988).
166. The interesting and substantial article by Anne Hudson Jones, "Medicine and the Physician," in Inge, Handbook (n. 11), 2: 721-44, states that "comic books have featured few practicing physicians as heroes, although some use scientist-physicians, such as Dr. Andrew Bryant, Dr. Hugo Strange, and Dr. X" (p. 724). Medical ideas in popular culture are also examined in Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996); Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ronald G. Walters, ed., Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Terra Ziporyn, Disease in the Popular American Press: The Case of Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever, and Syphilis, 1870-1920 (New York: Greenwood, 1988).
167. The interesting and substantial article by Anne Hudson Jones, "Medicine and the Physician," in Inge, Handbook (n. 11), 2: 721-44, states that "comic books have featured few practicing physicians as heroes, although some use scientist-physicians, such as Dr. Andrew Bryant, Dr. Hugo Strange, and Dr. X" (p. 724). Medical ideas in popular culture are also examined in Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996); Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ronald G. Walters, ed., Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Terra Ziporyn, Disease in the Popular American Press: The Case of Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever, and Syphilis, 1870-1920 (New York: Greenwood, 1988).
168. Bert Hansen, "America's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations of Medical Progress," Amer. Hist. Rev., 1998, 103:373-418; idem, "New Images of a New Medicine: Visual Evidence for Widespread Popularity of Therapeutic Discoveries in America after 1885," Bull. Hist. Med., 1999, 73: 629-78. These studies include both verbal and graphic imagery and provide citations to the wider literature. For popular graphic images of medicine, see also Bert Hansen, "The Image and Advocacy of Public Health in American Caricature and Cartoons from 1860 to 1900," Amer. J. Pub. Health, 1997, 87: 1798-807; and numerous studies by William H. Helfand, especially Medicine and Pharmacy in American Political Prints (1765-1870) (Madison: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1978) and Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books (New York: Grolier Club, 2002).
169. Bert Hansen, "America's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations of Medical Progress," Amer. Hist. Rev., 1998, 103:373-418; idem, "New Images of a New Medicine: Visual Evidence for Widespread Popularity of Therapeutic Discoveries in America after 1885," Bull. Hist. Med., 1999, 73: 629-78. These studies include both verbal and graphic imagery and provide citations to the wider literature. For popular graphic images of medicine, see also Bert Hansen, "The Image and Advocacy of Public Health in American Caricature and Cartoons from 1860 to 1900," Amer. J. Pub. Health, 1997, 87: 1798-807; and numerous studies by William H. Helfand, especially Medicine and Pharmacy in American Political Prints (1765-1870) (Madison: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1978) and Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books (New York: Grolier Club, 2002).
170. Bert Hansen, "America's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations of Medical Progress," Amer. Hist. Rev., 1998, 103:373-418; idem, "New Images of a New Medicine: Visual Evidence for Widespread Popularity of Therapeutic Discoveries in America after 1885," Bull. Hist. Med., 1999, 73: 629-78. These studies include both verbal and graphic imagery and provide citations to the wider literature. For popular graphic images of medicine, see also Bert Hansen, "The Image and Advocacy of Public Health in American Caricature and Cartoons from 1860 to 1900," Amer. J. Pub. Health, 1997, 87: 1798-807; and numerous studies by William H. Helfand, especially Medicine and Pharmacy in American Political Prints (1765-1870) (Madison: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1978) and Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books (New York: Grolier Club, 2002).
171. Bert Hansen, "America's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations of Medical Progress," Amer. Hist. Rev., 1998, 103:373-418; idem, "New Images of a New Medicine: Visual Evidence for Widespread Popularity of Therapeutic Discoveries in America after 1885," Bull. Hist. Med., 1999, 73: 629-78. These studies include both verbal and graphic imagery and provide citations to the wider literature. For popular graphic images of medicine, see also Bert Hansen, "The Image and Advocacy of Public Health in American Caricature and Cartoons from 1860 to 1900," Amer. J. Pub. Health, 1997, 87: 1798-807; and numerous studies by William H. Helfand, especially Medicine and Pharmacy in American Political Prints (1765-1870) (Madison: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1978) and Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books (New York: Grolier Club, 2002).
172. Bert Hansen, "America's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations of Medical Progress," Amer. Hist. Rev., 1998, 103:373-418; idem, "New Images of a New Medicine: Visual Evidence for Widespread Popularity of Therapeutic Discoveries in America after 1885," Bull. Hist. Med., 1999, 73: 629-78. These studies include both verbal and graphic imagery and provide citations to the wider literature. For popular graphic images of medicine, see also Bert Hansen, "The Image and Advocacy of Public Health in American Caricature and Cartoons from 1860 to 1900," Amer. J. Pub. Health, 1997, 87: 1798-807; and numerous studies by William H. Helfand, especially Medicine and Pharmacy in American Political Prints (1765-1870) (Madison: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1978) and Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books (New York: Grolier Club, 2002).
173. On Arrowsmith and on heroes more generally, see Charles E. Rosenberg,
174. On Arrowsmith and on heroes more generally, see Charles E. Rosenberg, "Martin Arrowsmith: The Scientist as Hero," Amer. Quart., 1963, 15: 447-58, also reprinted in his collection, No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 123-31.
175. George Basalla, "Pop Science: The Depiction of Science in Popular Culture," in Science and Its Public: The Changed Relationship, ed. Gerald Holton and William A. Blanpied, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 33 (Boston: Reidel, 1976), pp. 261-78. Comic strips or books were examined to a modest extent in Weart, Nuclear Fear (n. 88); in articles by John C. Burnham reprinted in his Paths into American Culture: Psychology, Medicine, and Morals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and in Geoffrey C. Bunn, "The Lie Detector, Wonder Woman, and Liberty: The Life and Work of William Moulton Marston," Hist. Hum. Sci., 1997, 10: 91-119, about the science popularizer who created Wonder Woman.
176. George Basalla, "Pop Science: The Depiction of Science in Popular Culture," in Science and Its Public: The Changed Relationship, ed. Gerald Holton and William A. Blanpied, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 33 (Boston: Reidel, 1976), pp. 261-78. Comic strips or books were examined to a modest extent in Weart, Nuclear Fear (n. 88); in articles by John C. Burnham reprinted in his Paths into American Culture: Psychology, Medicine, and Morals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and in Geoffrey C. Bunn, "The Lie Detector, Wonder Woman, and Liberty: The Life and Work of William Moulton Marston," Hist. Hum. Sci., 1997, 10: 91-119, about the science popularizer who created Wonder Woman.
177. George Basalla, "Pop Science: The Depiction of Science in Popular Culture," in Science and Its Public: The Changed Relationship, ed. Gerald Holton and William A. Blanpied, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 33 (Boston: Reidel, 1976), pp. 261-78. Comic strips or books were examined to a modest extent in Weart, Nuclear Fear (n. 88); in articles by John C. Burnham reprinted in his Paths into American Culture: Psychology, Medicine, and Morals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and in Geoffrey C. Bunn, "The Lie Detector, Wonder Woman, and Liberty: The Life and Work of William Moulton Marston," Hist. Hum. Sci., 1997, 10: 91-119, about the science popularizer who created Wonder Woman.
178. George Basalla, "Pop Science: The Depiction of Science in Popular Culture," in Science and Its Public: The Changed Relationship, ed. Gerald Holton and William A. Blanpied, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 33 (Boston: Reidel, 1976), pp. 261-78. Comic strips or books were examined to a modest extent in Weart, Nuclear Fear (n. 88); in articles by John C. Burnham reprinted in his Paths into American Culture: Psychology, Medicine, and Morals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and in Geoffrey C. Bunn, "The Lie Detector, Wonder Woman, and Liberty: The Life and Work of William Moulton Marston," Hist. Hum. Sci., 1997, 10: 91-119, about the science popularizer who created Wonder Woman.
179. Basalla, "Pop Science" (n. 92), p. 276.
180. Ibid., pp. 273-74.
181. Ibid., pp. 271-72.
182. Likewise overlooking the true-adventure comics of the 1940s, Roslynn Haynes, in a much more wide-ranging study than Basalla's article, makes a similar claim: "popular belief and behavior are influenced more by images than by demonstrable facts. Very few actual scientists (Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, and Albert Einstein are the only significant exceptions) have contributed to the popular images of 'the scientist.' On the other hand, fictional characters such as Dr. Faustus, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Caligari, and Dr. Strangelove have been extremely influential in the evolution of the unattractive stereotypes that continue in uneasy coexistence with the manifest dependence of Western society on its scientists" (Roslynn D. Haynes, From Faust to Strangelove: Representation of the Scientist in Western Literature [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994], p. 1). While the comic books of just one decade in one country do not overturn this perspective, they do offer a strong caution: first, that popular imagery of the scientist was based not only on fiction, but sometimes on fact; and second, that - at least at some times and in some places - highly attractive images were widely dispersed and widely shared.
183. 'You Edit This Magazine!" True Comics, no. 12 (May 1942), inside back cover. An example from outside the United States also offers explicit evidence. Recently the bio-chemist Dr. Manuel Patarroyo of Colombia recalled: "I was 8 years old when my father gave me a comic [book] to read.... It was just a booklet, really. And that booklet had Louis Pasteur's story and I was fascinated. Then, like any other child who wants to be a priest or wants to be a policeman or a bomber or a pilot, I wanted to be a scientist and didn't want to do anything different from what Pasteur did. Since then I have devoted my life to that" (David Spurgeon, Southern Lights: Celebrating the Scientific Achievements of the Developing World [Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 1995], chap. 7, found at http://www.idrc.ca/library/document/101742/chap7e.html (accessed 16 November 2003). Spurgeon explains that Dr. Patarroyo, a biochemist, "developed the world's first safe and effective malaria vaccine" (ibid.). Since Patarroyo was born in 1947, it seems possible that one comic he might have been reading, at least at age nine, was the Mexican comic book Vidas Ilustres, which ran a Pasteur story in 1956.
184. 'You Edit This Magazine!" True Comics, no. 12 (May 1942), inside back cover. An example from outside the United States also offers explicit evidence. Recently the bio-chemist Dr. Manuel Patarroyo of Colombia recalled: "I was 8 years old when my father gave me a comic [book] to read.... It was just a booklet, really. And that booklet had Louis Pasteur's story and I was fascinated. Then, like any other child who wants to be a priest or wants to be a policeman or a bomber or a pilot, I wanted to be a scientist and didn't want to do anything different from what Pasteur did. Since then I have devoted my life to that" (David Spurgeon, Southern Lights: Celebrating the Scientific Achievements of the Developing World [Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 1995], chap. 7, found at http://www.idrc.ca/library/document/101742/chap7e.html (accessed 16 November 2003). Spurgeon explains that Dr. Patarroyo, a biochemist, "developed the world's first safe and effective malaria vaccine" (ibid.). Since Patarroyo was born in 1947, it seems possible that one comic he might have been reading, at least at age nine, was the Mexican comic book Vidas Ilustres, which ran a Pasteur story in 1956.
185. The same pattern appears in a recent account of the work of vaccine biochemist Manuel Patarroyo, who was mentioned above as getting started on a scientific career after reading a Louis Pasteur comic book: "Quoting his boyhood idol, Louis Pasteur, Patarroyo continued: 'In every big discovery there are three stages: first, to convince yourself; second, to convince your friends; and third - the least productive but the most enjoyable one - to try to convince your detractors. And that's what I have been doing for the last 6 years'" (Spurgeon, Southern Lights [n. 97], chap. 1, at http://www.idrc.ca/library/document/101742/chaple.html (accessed 16 November 2003).
186. At various times, because of trade imbalances, there were restrictions in Canada on the sale of American comics and other imports, first during World War II and again in the late 1940s. In some cases, publishers added a "Not for Sale in Canada" caption to the covers and worked with Canadian publishers to do special Canadian editions - usually three or four months later, sometimes with different numberings, usually with thirty-six instead of fifty-two pages, and often without any advertising. See Overstreet Price Guide (n. 2), pp. 103-4; and Canuck Comics, ed. John Bell (Montreal: Matrix Books, 1986).
187. At various times, because of trade imbalances, there were restrictions in Canada on the sale of American comics and other imports, first during World War II and again in the late 1940s. In some cases, publishers added a "Not for Sale in Canada" caption to the covers and worked with Canadian publishers to do special Canadian editions - usually three or four months later, sometimes with different numberings, usually with thirty-six instead of fifty-two pages, and often without any advertising. See Overstreet Price Guide (n. 2), pp. 103-4; and Canuck Comics, ed. John Bell (Montreal: Matrix Books, 1986).
188. In addition to the presence of stories about African Americans in many true-adventure comics, a separate publication reprinting them was created by the National Urban League under the title Negro Heroes; but Spring 1947 and Summer 1948 were the only issues published. Negro Heroes, no. 2 (Summer 1948), included "Dynamic Fighter: Mabel K. Staupers," pp. 25-28. This particular story might not have been a reprint like the others in this book, as I have found no evidence of its appearance anywhere else.
189. In addition to the presence of stories about African Americans in many true-adventure comics, a separate publication reprinting them was created by the National Urban League under the title Negro Heroes; but Spring 1947 and Summer 1948 were the only issues published. Negro Heroes, no. 2 (Summer 1948), included "Dynamic Fighter: Mabel K. Staupers," pp. 25-28. This particular story might not have been a reprint like the others in this book, as I have found no evidence of its appearance anywhere else.
190. This popularization of a simplified version of the experimental method seems to me an important achievement, however much historians and philosophers of science properly show that actual scientific research rarely proceeds in accord with the basic model. Further, it appears that this attempt to foster rationality and materialism was exactly what George J. Hecht, the originator and publisher of True Comics, had in mind. Hecht's liberal humanism is described in Blake, "View of History" (n. 21).
191. As Reitberger and Fuchs observed, "the Second World War had a brutalizing effect on the output of all the mass media, including comics. Things that would have been judged sadistic in 1940 were deemed accurate reporting in 1945" (Comics: Anatomy [n. 9], p. 19).
192. In the bulk of de Kruifs Microbe Hunters, for example, one can easily pass over the multitude of animals sacrificed in the research, and the dying patients. The two exceptions are places where the author chooses to emphasize those actions: first, the suffering and deaths of human experimental subjects in the yellow fever research; and second, the extensive vivisection in Roux's and Behring's development of antitoxin for diphtheria, an image that de Kruif uses in the chapter's title: "Massacre the Guinea-Pigs."
193. "Doctor Facts," True Comics, no. 52 (September 1946): 1-5, quotations on p. 5.
194. I b i d.
195. "Presidential Aide: Bernard M. Baruch," Real Life Comics, no. 39 (May 1947): 3-7, quotation on p. 7.
196. Only later would medicine's reputation for progress be challenged by highly visible problems like the tragedy of thalidomide, revelations about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, the patients who died after receiving transplanted or mechanical hearts, the runaway costs of medical care, and the inability to deliver a quick triumph over AIDS.
197. Further evidence that children of this era were not shielded from vivisection is found in a special edition of Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters for use in schools: "Text Edition," ed. Harry G. Grover, Dickinson High School, Jersey, City, N.J. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948). "Massacre the Guinea Pigs" remains the uncensored title of the chapter on diphtheria; what is omitted from this edition, however, is the entire chapter about Paul Ehrlich's work on a magic bullet to combat syphilis. There is another piece of evidence showing that antivivisection sentiments were excluded from the comic book stories: True Comics, no. 16 (September 1942), includes "Friend of Animals" (pp. 22-27), a very sympathetic account of Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; though Bergh fought often and aggressively with doctors over animal experimentation, this aspect of his work is entirely omitted from this comic book account - as it is from a later textual story in another comic book: "Friend of Animals," True Animal Picture-Stories, no. 2 (Spring 1947 [cover says "Summer Issue 1947"]): 28-29.
198. Further evidence that children of this era were not shielded from vivisection is found in a special edition of Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters for use in schools: "Text Edition," ed. Harry G. Grover, Dickinson High School, Jersey, City, N.J. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948). "Massacre the Guinea Pigs" remains the uncensored title of the chapter on diphtheria; what is omitted from this edition, however, is the entire chapter about Paul Ehrlich's work on a magic bullet to combat syphilis. There is another piece of evidence showing that antivivisection sentiments were excluded from the comic book stories: True Comics, no. 16 (September 1942), includes "Friend of Animals" (pp. 22-27), a very sympathetic account of Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; though Bergh fought often and aggressively with doctors over animal experimentation, this aspect of his work is entirely omitted from this comic book account - as it is from a later textual story in another comic book: "Friend of Animals," True Animal Picture-Stories, no. 2 (Spring 1947 [cover says "Summer Issue 1947"]): 28-29.
199. Further evidence that children of this era were not shielded from vivisection is found in a special edition of Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters for use in schools: "Text Edition," ed. Harry G. Grover, Dickinson High School, Jersey, City, N.J. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948). "Massacre the Guinea Pigs" remains the uncensored title of the chapter on diphtheria; what is omitted from this edition, however, is the entire chapter about Paul Ehrlich's work on a magic bullet to combat syphilis. There is another piece of evidence showing that antivivisection sentiments were excluded from the comic book stories: True Comics, no. 16 (September 1942), includes "Friend of Animals" (pp. 22-27), a very sympathetic account of Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; though Bergh fought often and aggressively with doctors over animal experimentation, this aspect of his work is entirely omitted from this comic book account - as it is from a later textual story in another comic book: "Friend of Animals," True Animal Picture-Stories, no. 2 (Spring 1947 [cover says "Summer Issue 1947"]): 28-29.
200. Further evidence that children of this era were not shielded from vivisection is found in a special edition of Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters for use in schools: "Text Edition," ed. Harry G. Grover, Dickinson High School, Jersey, City, N.J. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948). "Massacre the Guinea Pigs" remains the uncensored title of the chapter on diphtheria; what is omitted from this edition, however, is the entire chapter about Paul Ehrlich's work on a magic bullet to combat syphilis. There is another piece of evidence showing that antivivisection sentiments were excluded from the comic book stories: True Comics, no. 16 (September 1942), includes "Friend of Animals" (pp. 22-27), a very sympathetic account of Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; though Bergh fought often and aggressively with doctors over animal experimentation, this aspect of his work is entirely omitted from this comic book account - as it is from a later textual story in another comic book: "Friend of Animals," True Animal Picture-Stories, no. 2 (Spring 1947 [cover says "Summer Issue 1947"]): 28-29.
201. To radio has been attributed the cultivation of "a tribal unity" across America, of which President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" were a prominent example. McLuhan, Understanding Media (n. 9), was the source of the phrase "tribal unity." On the metaphor of a "common hearth" around which Americans gathered, even as they were physically dispersed in their homes, see Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-70), 2: 5-7. Others have extended the metaphor as a "national hearth" to describe people's connecting with network television news: see Frank Rich, "And That's the Way It Was," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 19 May 2002, pp. 34-39, 65-66, 82, 85 (esp. pp. 66, 82). On the power of shared visual images, signs, and symbols, see Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), esp. p. xvii; and all the essays in Erika Doss, ed., Looking at LIFE Magazine (Washington, B.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
202. To radio has been attributed the cultivation of "a tribal unity" across America, of which President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" were a prominent example. McLuhan, Understanding Media (n. 9), was the source of the phrase "tribal unity." On the metaphor of a "common hearth" around which Americans gathered, even as they were physically dispersed in their homes, see Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-70), 2: 5-7. Others have extended the metaphor as a "national hearth" to describe people's connecting with network television news: see Frank Rich, "And That's the Way It Was," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 19 May 2002, pp. 34-39, 65-66, 82, 85 (esp. pp. 66, 82). On the power of shared visual images, signs, and symbols, see Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), esp. p. xvii; and all the essays in Erika Doss, ed., Looking at LIFE Magazine (Washington, B.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
203. To radio has been attributed the cultivation of "a tribal unity" across America, of which President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" were a prominent example. McLuhan, Understanding Media (n. 9), was the source of the phrase "tribal unity." On the metaphor of a "common hearth" around which Americans gathered, even as they were physically dispersed in their homes, see Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-70), 2: 5-7. Others have extended the metaphor as a "national hearth" to describe people's connecting with network television news: see Frank Rich, "And That's the Way It Was," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 19 May 2002, pp. 34-39, 65-66, 82, 85 (esp. pp. 66, 82). On the power of shared visual images, signs, and symbols, see Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), esp. p. xvii; and all the essays in Erika Doss, ed., Looking at LIFE Magazine (Washington, B.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
204. To radio has been attributed the cultivation of "a tribal unity" across America, of which President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" were a prominent example. McLuhan, Understanding Media (n. 9), was the source of the phrase "tribal unity." On the metaphor of a "common hearth" around which Americans gathered, even as they were physically dispersed in their homes, see Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-70), 2: 5-7. Others have extended the metaphor as a "national hearth" to describe people's connecting with network television news: see Frank Rich, "And That's the Way It Was," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 19 May 2002, pp. 34-39, 65-66, 82, 85 (esp. pp. 66, 82). On the power of shared visual images, signs, and symbols, see Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), esp. p. xvii; and all the essays in Erika Doss, ed., Looking at LIFE Magazine (Washington, B.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
205. To radio has been attributed the cultivation of "a tribal unity" across America, of which President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" were a prominent example. McLuhan, Understanding Media (n. 9), was the source of the phrase "tribal unity." On the metaphor of a "common hearth" around which Americans gathered, even as they were physically dispersed in their homes, see Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-70), 2: 5-7. Others have extended the metaphor as a "national hearth" to describe people's connecting with network television news: see Frank Rich, "And That's the Way It Was," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 19 May 2002, pp. 34-39, 65-66, 82, 85 (esp. pp. 66, 82). On the power of shared visual images, signs, and symbols, see Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), esp. p. xvii; and all the essays in Erika Doss, ed., Looking at LIFE Magazine (Washington, B.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).