@americanstudier
Prof of Amer Lit & Studies. Dad to 2 amazing young men. Married. We the People: http://tinyurl.com/yyhxjktb; Of Thee I Sing: http://tinyurl.com/y6hsozjx. #ScholarSunday guru. https://blackwhiteandread.com he/him
One of the greatest cinematographers in film history started his professional life as a teenage semipro boxer, & a Chinese American one just a few years after Jack Johnson’s iconic victory. That & more in today’s post in the James Wong Howe series! 🗃️
That's what I get for giving a reference when it wasn't my turn to give a reference.
I would prefer not to.
In light of both today's post & the ongoing #WBC, here's Season 1 of Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America. Learn about the tragic, inspiring, very American story of the 1870s Celestials before Season 2's 1st Inning drops on Opening Day!
americanstudier.podbean.com/e/first-inni...
PSA (especially for first gen grad students/ECRs):
Edited collections and special editions of journals are unmatched opportunities to stack the publications section of your CV.
E.g. The American Studies Association has a bunch of calls for them at the moment (and a spiffy redesigned website!)
Added to Sunday's thread! This is a question very much at the heart of one of my favorite & one of our most under-read American historical novels, David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident (1981).
www.google.com/books/editio...
Agreed! This was one of the most fun series to research & write in my 15.5 years of the blog to date, & I'm so glad it's connecting with folks.
PS. For more on the interconnected histories of race & boxing in America, make sure to check out @profloumoore.bsky.social's wonderful book I Fight for a Living.
& PPS. I can't implore you strongly enough to click on the first hyperlink in today's post for a truly delightful pictorial surprise.
Howe's boxing career was successful but brief, & individual to him of course. But as I write in the week's next post, we can also contextualize it with other compelling sports histories--from boxing & white supremacy to the Celestials semi-pro baseball team!
blackwhiteandread.com/march-10-202...
James Wong Howe lost his father in the early 1910s, less than a decade after his immigration to the US, when James was still just a teenager. He moved to Oregon to live with an uncle, & soon his life in that new home took a surprising & fascinating turn: he became a semi-pro bantamweight boxer!
& now with the correct byline so I feel 100% good about sharing it in Sunday's thread!
PS. I wrote about that Moroccan community in Charleston for @talkingpointsmemo.com long ago. I've since learned a lot more, & added a note correcting an important misquote in that column. But the community & histories remain vital for us to better remember.
talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/if-char...
In defending that clause during NC's ratification debates, James Iredell argued, "how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for?" Short answer, Rep. Ogles, it ain't. Your ideas are literally un-American.
& see also the Revolutionary-era Moroccan Muslim community in Charleston, South Carolina, & their effects on the Constitution's most radical moment, the "no religious test" clause:
www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/10/cons...
One of the most frustrating things about much of our collective memories is that even folks who see our multicultural diversity as a strength tend to think that it evolved over time, perhaps especially in the last half-century or so. The reality is quite the opposite!
scholars.org/brief/roots-...
Happy Harriet Tubman Day!
memorydaycalendar.blogspot.com/p/march-nomi...
Did you know that one of film history’s most influential cinematographers immigrated to the U.S. in 1904 at age 5 to join his father, a Chinese railroad worker for the Northern Pacific Railway? That & more in the first post in my series on the legendary James Wong Howe! 🗃️ @hcrichardson.bsky.social
Somehow I had missed that in my researches so it’s not in the week’s series, but what a great additional context, thank you!
That’s a really great additional context for Howe & the series, thanks!
This is part of what I’m talking about when I talk about art forms being exclusive. Part of the history of movies, is that the art forms was embraced by “outsiders” at a time it was considered to low, too dirty for “the right people.” They laid the framework for what we know as the art and business
Starting with today's post on 3 turn of the 20C histories which contextualize Wong Tung Jim's (his birth name) 1904 immigration, including Chinese American railroad workers (like his father), Pacific Northwest Chinatowns, & Exclusion Era anti-Chinese violence.
blackwhiteandread.com/march-9-2026...
The more I learned about James Wong Howe, the more I knew his life, work, & legacy were worthy of a weeklong blog series, both on their own terms & for all that they open up in our histories & stories. So this week I'll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for this legendary film pioneer! 🗃️
Here's that podcast conversation, on @nkoas.bsky.social & Tom Lorenzo's excellent You're Missing Out:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/y...
Those details only begin to tell the story of James Wong Howe, one of the most unique yet most exemplary figures in the history of American film & culture. I first learned of Howe when @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social talked about his work on Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) for a podcast appearance last fall.
One of the most influential cinematographers in film history immigrated to the U.S. from China when he was 5 (in 1904), became a successful semipro boxer in the Pacific Northwest before his move to LA & serendipitous entry into the industry, & married a white woman when it was illegal to do so. +
We've just hit 350 subscribers on Black & White & Read All Over!!!
@americanstudier.bsky.social and I are very grateful for the support of our work and space to build resources and connections for public humanities scholars. Leaving Substack and rebuilding on our own site was hard but so worth it.
this is how I access bluesky
