Joel Rhodes, Ph.D., an associate professor of history at Southeast Missouri State University, recently sent The Pitch an e-mail asking that readers contact him with their personal stories of the 1960s. Sure, Doc. First, though, he answered a few questions himself in an e-mail exchange.
The Pitch: Why the '60s, which feels familiar and widely portrayed already?
Rhodes: I see my job as trying to put some historical perspective on the "1960s." My first book, The Voice of Violence, looked at less well-known radical groups in the Midwest (places like Lawrence and Kansas City) in an attempt to get away from the misperception that the '60s only happened in Berkeley, Chicago, Ann Arbor and Woodstock. This new book is another step down that path, another attempt to look at the Vietnam era from points of view that haven't already been analyzed by historians and the media. No one has ever approached "the '60s" through the eyes of the 57 million kids who were born between 1956 and 1970. The stories of how this generation understood the historical forces of "the sixties" as children -- and any impact this unique perspective has had on them as adults -- is virtually uncharted territory for historians.
In collecting these recollections I'm relying initially on the calling card of nostalgia (Kennedy, Vietnam, hippies, etc.), but I'm hopeful that as people ponder their childhood during the era they'll dig much deeper. Over the next couple of years I'll weave their recollections into a history of social change in the '60s. ... I hope to collect thousands of personal recollections and my guess is that the stories themselves will take the book into wonderful directions that I don't yet anticipate.
What has been the biggest impact of the 1960s on your life? Did your interest in that era drive your desire to work in history in the first place?
I consider myself a Cold War-era political and social historian with a special interest in the Vietnam era of American history. I was born in 1967, and my formative memories are of the sound and fury of the '60s and Vietnam. Probably more than anything else, those preadolescent years inspired me to become a historian. Especially considering that I was in high school before I realized that LBJ's real name wasn't "That God Damned Lyndon Johnson." That's all I'd ever heard him called at my house as a kid. I was struck by the disconnect between my mom's venom toward him and what I came to understand about the man behind the Civil Rights Acts and Medicare. From then on, I was hooked on trying to make meaning out of the times in which I had grown up.
You've sat on numerous boards and seem always to be speaking, teaching and writing. What goes into the day-to-day business of being a working historian, and how vital is it to keep your focus on a given topic or period?
I think intellectual curiosity and passion are the keys to sustaining my focus. It's that inherent attraction to the past that keeps me teaching, researching, and writing even when the task at hand is incredibly boring or tedious, like sifting through dusty archives or teaching about the Wilson presidency for the third time that day. It's hard to separate the historian part from my personality. It's just who I am. I'm always a historian. I suppose it's like being an artist. It's not something you leave at the office. An example: When I was very sick once in grad school, at UMKC, as I drifted in and out of consciousness from a high fever I apparently lay there for hours and enumerated every program of the New Deal and explained a little about each.
Where in Missouri, in terms of specific sites or areas, is lacking or endangered due to limited funding or efforts?
In our field every place has been hit by this recession: higher education, historic sites, grants, preservation projects, you name it. The State Historical Society of Missouri is a perfect example. That flagship organization, which has been at the forefront of preserving and interpreting Missouri history for over a century, has had its budget slashed and lost staff positions. Remaining staff have taken drastic voluntary pay cuts, and many services, like their Speaker's Bureau, have been suspended. It's pretty sobering.
Did that affect the book you've edited that was slated for release last year, Movers and Shakers?
Alas, the publication of Movers and Shakers has been postponed for the foreseeable future because of the State Historical Society's economic situation.
Is there someplace relatively off the map where you would direct someone interested in local history who has already seen the most well-known sites?
I would definitely recommend the 1950s All Electric House and permanent exhibits at the Johnson County Museum. Very cool and very well done.
To tell Rhodes your own '60s stories, e-mail jrhodes@semo.edu or look up the Children of the Sixties page on Facebook.
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I have just passed the halfway point of my first year's diary of the 1960's which I am compiling on my blog 50 years to the day after the events happened. As you did in your Pitch interview, I mentioned (likely candidate) Johnson (on July 13) when the Democratic National Convention was taking place in Los Angeles. Park College (now Park University) had outstanding history and political science degree programs, but political activism was non-existent when I was a student there, even with the escalation of the Viet Nam War. There were no protests or demonstrations.
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