Social Activism, Hamilton, and Puerto Rico
By Andreas Meyris
—
Originally posted on Process
The 2018 OAH Annual Meeting (#OAH18) on the theme “The Forms of History” reminded historians of the different shapes the discipline can take and how this variety influences the public sphere. Every panel I attended addressed contemporary American life and how history can and should become more of a mainstay in political, social, and cultural discourse. Along these lines, as evidenced by the numerous live tweeters and the new Amplified Initiative, which digitally recorded most of the panels, there is a widely understood drive among historians and other scholars to reach beyond college campuses to make knowledge more accessible to a larger audience. Attendees to this year’s conference also pushed the discipline to provide frameworks for contemporary politics as well as models of responsible citizenship.
A common thread running through the entire conference was an interest in studying social movements of the past to provide guidance for the present. This interest was well represented by the panels, “Taking Control of Capitalism in 20th-Century Chicago” and “Bridging Race, Ideology, and Strategy: Coalitions from the Long 1960s to the Reagan Years.” These panels covered a wide range of topics, from the founding of radical “Third World Colleges” in the 1960s Bay Area to organizing among the unemployed in 1930s Illinois. Providing a pertinent example, Allyson Brantley (University of La Verne) reviewed the movement to boycott Coors Brewing Company. Despite the strength and diversity of the boycott which at one point included trade unions, anti-racist organizations, and LGBT groups, by the 1980s Coors managed to break the coalition by diversifying its image and appealing directly to minorities—especially by funding LGBT pride events.
“‘What Did I Miss?’ Historians Discuss Hamilton” session at the 2018 OAH conference in Sacramento, presenters (l to r) David Greenberg, Claire Potter, Renee Romano, and Patricia Herrera.
Jon Shelton (University of Wisconsin, Green Bay), who commented on the Chicago panel, laid out an important consideration for weighing the overall impact of past activism, by asking “How malleable has capitalism actually been?” and “How much should working people concede?” Emily K. Hobson (University of Nevada, Reno), who commented on the latter panel, proposed a similar query, “How do we measure social movements beyond a framework of success or failure?”—an important reminder that historical actors often never accomplish exactly what they set out to or what we as historians would want them to accomplish. Both summaries pointed to a shared optimism that many in the United States are again pushing for social justice and looking to the past for guidance. Given the recent marches for gender equality and responsible firearm legislation, alongside massive statewide teachers’ strikes in Arizona, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, there is no shortage of diverse movements for change.
Often, however, providing historical lessons to a wide audience requires creativity and flexibility. This was the guiding principle at the heavily attended session, “‘What Did I Miss?’: Historians Discuss Hamilton.” During this session, David Greenberg (Rutgers University), Renee Romano (Oberlin College), Claire Potter (The New School), and Patricia Herrera (University of Richmond), discussed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton and its effect on the public consumption of history. As Romano pointed out, Miranda’s portrayal is now what many young adults first associate with the nation’s founding. How should historians interact with a musical that both inspires a deep interest in American history, but also limits a comprehensive understanding of the era? Potter pointed to online communities of Miranda’s fans and insisted that scholars “need to take social media seriously.” Herrera likewise sounded the alarm by arguing that while Hamilton is diverse in its casting, it is not “representative” of many marginalized voices of the early Republic. Enslaved Africans, native peoples, and women remain underrepresented in Miranda’s work. Still, as all of the panelists reiterated, it is a good thing for any telling of history to become a global phenomenon. Even if popular portrayals of historical events are not pristine accounts, they provide a crucial opening for historians to contextualize and provide a more nuanced history of that era.