The Disney name is perhaps the most legendary in all of film. Generations grew up watching his animations and movies, adopting them into their own childhoods. The man himself possessed a peculiar attitude about his studio, insisting that his workers call him “Walt” and trying to maintain his ever growing company as a family business (Roberts 231). Walt Disney viewed the world as a father might view his children, and he transformed from sympathetic to cynical to idealistic as history unfolded.

His opinions changed over the years as he watched the world grow and struggle. The Great Depression left millions of Americans jobless and was a startling comedown after the heights of the 1920s. Disney saw this and gave the country lovable creations like Mickey Mouse to cheer them up and distract them from their present problems (Roberts 234). Much in the way a father might console his crying child by buying him an ice cream cone, Disney saw too much distress in the decade to ignore.

This changed, however, when one-third of his staff went on strike in the early 40’s (Roberts 232). Disney saw his paternal attitude thrown in his face as the workers he tried so hard to treat fairly erupted into unrest. He had tried to control the damage by giving a pep talk, but when that failed, it seems he lost a little faith in the spirit of his countrymen (Roberts 233). Rather than keep producing the optimistic Mickey Mouse of the 30’s, Disney switched to the cynical, sinister Donald Duck (Roberts 234). Internal affairs were not the only thing that led Disney to this shift; national events like the attack on Pearl Harbor also shifted his worldview to be more aggressive and nation-minded.

As the decade ended, however, and the prosperity of the 50’s arrived, he combined his views from the past two decade into a more nostalgic outlook. He brought back a little of the feel-good spice from his older cartoons mixed with the nationalism brought on by the war. The key to the whole picture was Disneyland, a place that, as he said, emphasized “the story of what made America great and what will keep it great” (Roberts 237). Here, he searched the past for figures that might put the strife and divisiveness of the 40’s behind him and return the country to the ‘good old days’ (Roberts 237).

This search led him to Davy Crockett. Amidst the escapism of the Crockett films, Disney maintained his view that America was a great country founded by great people. He consistently portrays Crockett as a fair individual, and the frontiersman’s backcountry wisdom wins out over the scheming of Washington politicians. His desire to unify Americans with a common history led him to make a hero out of Crockett, regardless of the recorded facts. To Disney, actual history mattered less than what history could become. With Crockett, he let his own views of Americans as a noble and fair people pervade the show, and he succeeded in expressing this to a generation of young Americans.

Today I went to the library and looked at some of the sources we could use for Billy the Kid. There are a bunch of promising books, and they can serve a variety of purposes. The biographies of his life are the most abundant, but the interesting thing is the time gap between them. I found one from 1920, some from the 50’s and 60’s, one from the late 80’s, and one from 2007. Using these, we could track how Billy the Kid’s legend has evolved over time. We could also compare perceptions of him to historical events and known societal attitudes to try and draw some conclusions about both the time period and Billy the Kid. Most of the books were broken up into chapters with descriptive titles that imply something about the period of his life they deal with. Interestingly, in the forwards, many authors emphasize how little information there is about the Kid, yet they manage to write authoritatively on him for several hundred pages. We could investigate why this discrepancy exists.

Also of interest was a collection of newspaper articles written about the Kid throughout his life. I looked through them, and they seem to indicate that he was not perceived as nearly as heroic as later peoples did. The sheriff who shot him was billed as a hero, yet in one of the books, he is described as going into hiding after killing the Kid for fear of public retribution. A question to address is why has history created so many different versions of the Kid’s tale? What time periods adopted which versions? What is the current impression of the bandit, and is he even worth remembering? There was recently a novel written about him, so we could draw on that.

I agree with Charli about Henry Ford; he is famous, but he might be a bit too dry for a legendary figure. Al Capone is certainly more exciting, but I like Billy the Kid the most. He provides a lot of potential discussion topics, and there are plenty of possible readings to choose from.

Books I looked at:

Billy the Kid : the best writings on the infamous outlaw / [compiled by] Harold Dellinger.

Billy the Kid; Las Vegas newspaper accounts of his career, 1880-1881.

History of “Billy the Kid,” by Chas. A. Siringo

Billy the Kid : a Short and Violent Life by Robert M. Utley.

So, after looking over some material on our three candidates (Billy the Kid, Henry Ford, Al Capone), I came up with some points about each of them:

Billy the Kid: To me, he is the most “legendary” of the group. Since Ricky already did a bit of digging and asked some good questions, I just researched some of the surface information and looked around to make sure there would be enough material to create a decent syllabus of readings. There should be plenty. A quick search of Fondren reveals pages and pages of books about him, as well as newspaper clippings and songs and poems. Also, there has been a movie adapted from his exploits every decade since the 1930s. Beyond the abundance of resources, there is a lot about his legendary status to be explored. Why did people criticize the sheriff’s killing of an armed and dangerous outlaw as “unfair”? What made people so attached to him? Was he some sort of vicarious scapegoat for the people of the time, someone they could pin crimes on and imagine his reckless life as their own? At this stage, I’m inclined to pursue him as our legendary figure.

Henry Ford: Henry Ford is different than either Al Capone or Billy the Kid. Most of what he did was well documented, so he is not the “shrouded in myth” kind of legendary, but instead he attained massive amounts of respect by innovating and revolutionizing industry. It is hard to believe one man pioneered as much as he did: the 40-48 hour work week, a relatively high minimum wage, the assembly line, and the car for the working man. There are a few questions that warrant asking: how do people reconcile such an undoubtedly great career with his apparent anti-Semitism? Did he really invent everything people attribute to him, and what does that say about the public’s perception of inventors? There is plenty of material on him as well, but I think I would prefer to work on Billy the Kid.

Al Capone: As another criminal, many of the same broad questions can be asked of him as Billy the Kid, especially about his perception by the general public. The most basic: why was such a criminal admired by people? Is this a distinctly American thing? Society teaches us that crimes and therefore criminals are bad, but there appears to be some threshold where a person goes from inconsequential and looked down on to revered. What defines that threshold? In Al Capone’s case, we could look at the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre and other, lesser known crimes to see how they are remembered and how they affected his image. There is tons of information on him as well, to the point where we might become overloaded trying to slog through it all to find interesting, quality readings for the class. Overall, I like the allure of Billy the Kid’s western escapades a bit more than the straight gangsterism of Al Capone.

In the next week or two, we should read through some of the books in the library or scholarly journals online to get a sense of what we’re up against!

The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence remain as canonical as ever, though Washington’s Farewell Address seems to have fallen by the wayside. Modern times offer more such texts, however, at the cost the public’s devotion to each one, and given the long term effects of canonical texts, this might be a good thing.

Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech qualifies, and several of JFK’s speeches like his inaugural address and the speech he delivered at Rice concerning the space program are canonical civil texts, though to a lesser degree than something like the Farewell Address. There are plenty more “iconic” texts from the past century, like FDR’s speech on fear, but these speeches do not influence American culture to anywhere near the degree that the texts of yore seemed to. They provide a few pithy quotes, a stir of patriotism, and a reminder of what a solid team of speechwriters can do. Civil texts still remain from past eras, such as the Gettysburg Address and the lyrics to the national anthem, but these too hold much less sway than documents from the late eighteenth century.

Most of my readings in school would not qualify as “popularizing texts.” History classes were the exception, since most curriculums are almost designed around popularizing the old civil texts. But I did not learn to read with Declaration of Independence or practice memorizing Martin Luther King’s speech. In fact, I do not think I have ever read the entire text of JFK’s “ask not what your country can do for you” speech, much less seen it republished in newspapers or distributed in pamphlets. Perhaps it stems from the timing of my generation. Other stresses and distractions keep people from paying too much attention to civics, and the past few presidents have offered little material that could be immortalized as the defining patriotic sentiment of the era. As such, much of the lessons in the classroom refer to the “good old days” when everyone apparently knew what they were doing.

In regards to that, Furstenberg delivered one of the most interesting points of the book in the epilogue, where he questions whether civic texts, though massively beneficial for a fractured country, are holding America back in the present day. The quotes from Jefferson about modifying the Constitution were new to me. Previously, I was in the camp that supported the Constitution as almost untouchable, created by visionaries in a time when politics were much clearer and cleaner than they are today. The author dismisses these notions however, as he points out the costs of deifying our forefathers with such civil texts; they unify the nation but tether it to outdated figures and ideologies. The admonition is that a country that is set against change will not survive in the world for long.

With that in mind, I feel conflicted about the lack of landmark civic texts in the my time. Without anything to replace the old documents, the country’s identity still seems to be based around exuberant nationalism. While this was necessary back in the first 50 years of the nation’s founding, it makes less sense in the increasingly globalized world of today. However, this same dearth of current civic texts means that generations from now, people will not be hooked on the ideas of the late 20th century. If the respect for the Founding Fathers returns to rational levels, they might even be free to innovate without feeling like they are betraying the country’s roots. As such, I am glad the popularizing texts have opted not to blow any speeches or documents out of proportion.