On this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Thanksgiving food, the controversial history of football, and Black Friday.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:

• At the first Thanksgiving meal in 1621, the colonists and Native Americans probably didn’t eat turkey, but food has always been important to the holiday. Niki noted that the CBS documentary, Harvest of Shame, broadcast the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, showed the political dimensions of food as it highlighted the plight of America’s migrant farm workers. Natalia observed that contemporary conversations about food politics have been shaped in large part by the writings of Michael Pollan.
• Football has been played on Thanksgiving Day almost as long as the holiday has been observed. Neil pointed out football has always been controversial because of the violent nature of the game, resulting in the death of 18 players in 1905 alone. Natalia suggested Gail Bederman’s book, Manliness and Civilization, for thinking about football historically, but also recommended Ariel Levy’s New Yorker article about Steubenville and Malcolm Gladwell’s essay comparing football to dogfighting for grappling with the game’s current controversies.
• “Black Friday” didn’t always refer to a day of excessive shopping following Thanksgiving. But now that it does, some stores are opting out of the day’s frenzy or at least refusing to open on Thanksgiving.

In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History:

• Natalia discussed the cancellation of free yoga classes at the University of Ottawa because of fears over “cultural appropriation.”
• Neil explored the unexpected history of the Thanksgiving hymn, “We Gather Together.”
• Niki educated us on the cranberry scare of 1959.

On this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss the campus protests at Mizzou and Yale, Tinder and online dating, and the politics of immigration. 

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:

• Protests at the University of Missouri, Yale, and other schools have erupted over issues regarding racism on college campuses today. At Mizzou, the university’s troubled history of racism has shaped the most recent events. Niki mentioned that classic works like Alan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind and Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education made the idea of “political correctness” the prevailing conservative interpretation of university politics and has shaped the current conversation regarding free speech on campus.
• The dating app Tinder has updated its features to allow users to add job and education information to their profiles. Dating in the internet age has occasioned all sorts of worries about how technology is changing modern romance, but Natalia pointed out there are many continuities with courtship practices across the twentieth century. Natalia noted the works of scholars like Paula Fass and Mary McComb show some of the same practices we think of as created by the internet, such as rating your date, go back to the 1920s.
• Immigration has emerged as one of the biggest issues in the 2016 presidential race. Niki has recently written about how immigration has become the most important issue in the Republican race for the nomination, and she cited Mae Ngai’s history of illegal aliens, Impossible Subjects, as an important work that has shaped her thinking regarding the history of immigration in America.

In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History:

• Natalia recommended Aziz Ansari’s new Netflix show, Master of None, in part for how it portrays race in America today.
• Neil suggested two readings on Charles Schulz and his famous comic strip to accompany the new Peanuts movie. Neil recommended David Michaelis’ 2007 biography Schulz and Peanuts and Sarah Boxer’s recent Atlantic article, “The Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy.”
• Niki discussed Jill Lepore’s New Yorker article on the history of polling.

On this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Jeb Bush and the history of frontrunners, the modern period, and trigger warnings. 

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:

• Jeb Bush was the presumed frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, but he’s quickly lost the top spot in the campaign. Frontrunners have often been unable to secure their party’s nomination. Neil tracked “frontrunner” on Google’s Ngram Viewer and found it was first used in 1924, but until 1960 it was mostly used in the context of horseracing. Niki noted that the jump of “frontrunner” language from horseracing to politics after 1960 was in keeping with what a 2012 Atlantic article had called the “Sports Center-ization” of political journalism.
• Menstruation has a long history. Some women are practicing “free bleeding” as a feminist project to reclaim the period from its history of shame and taboo. Natalia recommended Lara Freidenfelds’ history of menstruation in the twentieth century and an Atlantic article about the history of the tampon. The marketing of tampons and other feminine hygiene products have changed remarkably in recent years, perhaps most clearly in the humorous Camp Gyno ads for the tampon subscription service, HelloFlo.   
• The controversy over “trigger warnings” on college campuses today has become a hot media topic, but is it a real phenomenon? A recent Atlantic article by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt lamenting the “coddling of the American mind” certainly seemed to think so.  While liberal students in the 1960s protested for greater free speech on campus, liberal students today have called on universities to limit and publish offensive speech for the purposes of ensuring a “safe space.” Natalia noted this had also transformed how college students are dealing with sexual assault on campus, holding universities more accountable for these crimes than the perpetrators, a development Natalia has written about for the Notches blog. 

In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History:

• Natalia discussed SeaWorld San Diego’s decision to end its killer whale performances after protests following the release of the 2013 documentary “Black Fish.”
• Neil commented on the defeat of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) last week, a nondiscrimination measure that opponents termed the “bathroom bill.” Neil wrote for Slate last week that conservative activists have used fears over public restrooms to defeat equal rights measures since the 1970s.

• Niki shared an article that asserted the ballpoint pen, rather than the computer, was what killed cursive writing. 

On this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss Benghazi and the history of Congressional hearings, Ben Carson and black Republicans, and the state of reality TV today.

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:

• Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the Congressional committee on Benghazi is just the latest event in a Congressional investigation that has lasted 72 months, inviting comparison to other Congressional hearings, including the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra affair. Natalia remarked that liberal media outlets, like the New Yorker, have concluded Clinton emerged triumphant from the hearings, while Neil noted that Fox News had cut away from its broadcast of the hearings once the Republicans appeared to have bungled their case against Clinton.
• Ben Carson has emerged as a frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, but African-American Republicans are an increasingly rare group. Niki recommended Leah Wright Rigueur’s book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican, as an excellent recent history of black conservatives and the party of Lincoln.
• American Idol and Survivor are slumping in the ratings, but is reality TV dead? Neil argued no, pointing to the proliferation of reality TV shows that continue to blanket the airwaves. The history of reality TV is a complicated one, however, in part because no one seems to agree on what exactly defines the genre.

In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History:

• Natalia commented on the controversy at the University of Louisville where the school’s president and other administrators wore stereotypical Mexican costumes to a staff Halloween party.
• Neil noted the record established on October 28 that the U.S. had gone 18,967 days without a president dying in office since John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. The previous record of 18,966 lasted between George Washington’s inauguration in 1789 and William Henry Harrison’s death in 1841.
• Niki discussed Paul Ryan’s ascension to the speakership and explained why Speakers of the House almost never make it to the Oval Office.