Historical education serves a twofold purpose. First, the knowledge of historical facts and concepts enables students to understand the contemporary world’s origins and the roots of the complex problems facing human societies. Second, the skills developed by studying history: writing, research, and interpreting documents, useful in almost any career. Traditionally, historians and students focused on the historical record that existed in print material. Many of the late 20th century’s important documents, however, exist as only as visual media: photographs, films, advertisements, and television broadcasts. Understanding these artifacts requires students to go beyond print and achieve visual literacy. By understanding how people in the past created and used visual media, and looking at the same images with their own eyes, students gain a deeper understanding of historical events. In addition, visual literacy is a vital skill for comprehending a world where the images is ubiquitous (Staley 58-87).
The challenge for teaching history is to find an affordable and convenient way for students to access visual primary sources, especially television, a medium with a notoriously short “lifespan.” One of the great Web 2.0 phenomena, YouTube, offers a solution to this challenge. Using cheap digital storage, video compression, and the higher speeds enabled by a broadband-based Internet, YouTube serves as an (almost) infinite archive for the images of our past. Because users generate all of the content, YouTube serves the needs of a wide variety of communities, including historians and history teachers. Like video thrift-store, however, there is a lot of clutter and junk. There are, however, terrific “finds,” if the viewer knows what he or she is looking for.
Unfortunately, however, many of the clips on YouTube are posted “as is,” with minimal or inaccurate background information. Without this knowledge, it is difficult for the viewer to contextualize their experience and comprehend what they are watching. This project aim is to find historically significant video clips and provide the requisite background information along with links and citations for more in-depth study. Each clip also features examples of discussion questions that students can work on as a class or as an independent assignment. The first goal is to relate the visual images with the historic record. The second is to encourage students to think critically about what they are seeing. There are also links to other sources of free on-line film for classroom use. I hope that this project will also inspire the reader-viewer’s own investigations into on-line video, and encouraging the recovery and use of the visual past.
Sources
David Staley, Computers, Visualization and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Propaganda and World War II on the Home Front: Der Fuehrer’s Face
Context
During World War II, the United States’ economy left the stagnation of the Great Depression and became the “Arsenal of Democracy” as factories and farms mobilized for building the weapons needed by America and the Allied Powers. The quantity of goods produced was staggering, ranging from 1,556 naval vessels and 299,294 aircraft to 6.5 million rifles and 40 billion bullets (Kennedy 655). The home front victories, however, came with a price. While the continental United States escaped the horrors of bombing and combat, civilian life lost many of its peacetime pleasantries. Long hours at work, rationing, and shortages of consumer goods and housing, all took their toll on morale (Cohen 62-75 ). Factories racially integrated their workforces in order to meet the demands of wartime production and as the result of President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 in June 1941 that established the Far Employment Practices Commission. Conflict erupted on the shop floor as white workers downed tools in “hate strikes.” Racial violence also spilled into overcrowded wartime cities, notably in the 1943 Detroit Riot (Kennedy 762-770).
Amidst this turbulent atmosphere, the U.S. government employed a large-scale propaganda campaign, through the Office of War Information, in order to diffuse conflict and keep the population focused on winning the war against the Axis.
One famous example of this campaign was the film Der Fuehrer’s Face, released on January 1, 1943, that featured the familiar cartoon character Donald Duck dreaming of a decidedly unhappy life as an enslaved part of the Nazi war machine. The film won an Oscar in 1943 in the category of Best Animated Short Film (The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts).
Here is the film.
Discussion Questions
What message does the film try and convey to the viewer? Discuss examples of the techniques that the film uses, such parody, stereotyping, and caricature to achieve these goals.
Do you think that the film distinguishes between “Germans” and Nazis”?
If you were making a propaganda film today, would you employ the same narrative strategies that this film uses? How and why do you think that propaganda has changed?
Sources
Lizabeth Cohen, The Consumers Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
David M. Kennedy Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
The Encyclopedia of Disney Film Shorts “Der Fuehrer’s Face.”
During World War II, the United States’ economy left the stagnation of the Great Depression and became the “Arsenal of Democracy” as factories and farms mobilized for building the weapons needed by America and the Allied Powers. The quantity of goods produced was staggering, ranging from 1,556 naval vessels and 299,294 aircraft to 6.5 million rifles and 40 billion bullets (Kennedy 655). The home front victories, however, came with a price. While the continental United States escaped the horrors of bombing and combat, civilian life lost many of its peacetime pleasantries. Long hours at work, rationing, and shortages of consumer goods and housing, all took their toll on morale (Cohen 62-75 ). Factories racially integrated their workforces in order to meet the demands of wartime production and as the result of President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 in June 1941 that established the Far Employment Practices Commission. Conflict erupted on the shop floor as white workers downed tools in “hate strikes.” Racial violence also spilled into overcrowded wartime cities, notably in the 1943 Detroit Riot (Kennedy 762-770).
Amidst this turbulent atmosphere, the U.S. government employed a large-scale propaganda campaign, through the Office of War Information, in order to diffuse conflict and keep the population focused on winning the war against the Axis.
One famous example of this campaign was the film Der Fuehrer’s Face, released on January 1, 1943, that featured the familiar cartoon character Donald Duck dreaming of a decidedly unhappy life as an enslaved part of the Nazi war machine. The film won an Oscar in 1943 in the category of Best Animated Short Film (The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts).
Here is the film.
Discussion Questions
What message does the film try and convey to the viewer? Discuss examples of the techniques that the film uses, such parody, stereotyping, and caricature to achieve these goals.
Do you think that the film distinguishes between “Germans” and Nazis”?
If you were making a propaganda film today, would you employ the same narrative strategies that this film uses? How and why do you think that propaganda has changed?
Sources
Lizabeth Cohen, The Consumers Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
David M. Kennedy Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
The Encyclopedia of Disney Film Shorts “Der Fuehrer’s Face.”
“See the USA in Your Chevrolet!”
Context
After World War II, the United States entered an era of unprecedented mass consumption. A combination of wartime savings, easier access to consumer credit, and a generally strong economy, bolstered by government spending, enabled Americans to buying everything from homes in the suburbs to TV dinners and disposable diapers. By 1959, Americans owned “44 million homeowners, 56 million cars, 50 million television sets, and 143 million radios” (Cohen 126, 118-129). The key medium for selling all of these products was television. Between 1948 and 1960, television industry’s revenues increased from almost nothing to $1.5 billion dollars per year. That year the “typical viewer” watched 10,000 commercials from 376 advertisers (Samuel 154). No company was more associated with the consumer boom than General Motors, a corporation so large that its President, Charles Wilson, stated, without irony, that “What was good for our country was good for General Motors-and vice versa. The difference did not exist.” when he was nominated as Secretary of Defense (Cray 6-7). The following is one of the best-known advertisements from the early age of television (1952), featuring a memorable jingle sung by Dinah Shore.
See the USA in your Chevrolet
America is asking you to call
Drive your Chevrolet through the USA
America's the greatest land of all
On a highway, or a road along the levy
Performance is sweeter, nothing can beat her
Life is completer in a Chevy
So make a date today to see the USA
And see it in your Chevrolet
Traveling East, Traveling West
Wherever you go Chevy service is best
Southward or North, near place or far
There's a Chevrolet dealer for your Chevrolet car
So make a date today to see the USA
And see it in your Chevrolet (Vintage Chevrolet Archive).
Here is the Film:
Discussion Questions:
How does the ad link, both explicitly and implicity, consumption and patriotism?
If you lived in the 1950s, would you agree that “what was good General Motors” good for the United States as well?
How is this commercial both similar and differ from an ads that are aired in the present day? Why do you think that advertising has changed?
Sources
Lizabeth Cohen, The Consumers Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
Ed Cray, Chrome Colossus: General Motors and Its Times. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).
Lawrence R Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Vintage Chevrolet Archive
After World War II, the United States entered an era of unprecedented mass consumption. A combination of wartime savings, easier access to consumer credit, and a generally strong economy, bolstered by government spending, enabled Americans to buying everything from homes in the suburbs to TV dinners and disposable diapers. By 1959, Americans owned “44 million homeowners, 56 million cars, 50 million television sets, and 143 million radios” (Cohen 126, 118-129). The key medium for selling all of these products was television. Between 1948 and 1960, television industry’s revenues increased from almost nothing to $1.5 billion dollars per year. That year the “typical viewer” watched 10,000 commercials from 376 advertisers (Samuel 154). No company was more associated with the consumer boom than General Motors, a corporation so large that its President, Charles Wilson, stated, without irony, that “What was good for our country was good for General Motors-and vice versa. The difference did not exist.” when he was nominated as Secretary of Defense (Cray 6-7). The following is one of the best-known advertisements from the early age of television (1952), featuring a memorable jingle sung by Dinah Shore.
See the USA in your Chevrolet
America is asking you to call
Drive your Chevrolet through the USA
America's the greatest land of all
On a highway, or a road along the levy
Performance is sweeter, nothing can beat her
Life is completer in a Chevy
So make a date today to see the USA
And see it in your Chevrolet
Traveling East, Traveling West
Wherever you go Chevy service is best
Southward or North, near place or far
There's a Chevrolet dealer for your Chevrolet car
So make a date today to see the USA
And see it in your Chevrolet (Vintage Chevrolet Archive).
Here is the Film:
Discussion Questions:
How does the ad link, both explicitly and implicity, consumption and patriotism?
If you lived in the 1950s, would you agree that “what was good General Motors” good for the United States as well?
How is this commercial both similar and differ from an ads that are aired in the present day? Why do you think that advertising has changed?
Sources
Lizabeth Cohen, The Consumers Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
Ed Cray, Chrome Colossus: General Motors and Its Times. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).
Lawrence R Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Vintage Chevrolet Archive
Massive Retaliation for Kids: Duck and Cover
Context
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and ended the American monopoly on nuclear weapons. In a political climate marked by escalating the Cold War standoff, especially following North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950, some American politicians and scientists renewed their interest in protecting civilians from a potential nuclear war. On January 24, 1952, educators in Washington previewed one of the most memorable civil defense films, Duck and Cover. (“Duck and Cover: the Citizen Kane of Civil Defense”)
The film was part of an even larger civil defense campaign aimed at school children that included the distribution of 3 million comic books. On a even more morbid note, New York City issued 2.5 million free dog tags to all school children in order to identify the dead after a nuclear attack (Winkler 115). These preparations created an ambiance of paranoia that underscored the supposedly placid “Leave it to Beaver” childhoods of the generation that grew-up in the 1950s.
Novelist Tim O’Brien later described his childhood experience of the “atomic age.”
When I was a kid I converted my Ping-Pong table into a fallout shelter. Funny? Poignant? A nifty comment on the modern age. Well, let me tell you something. The year was 1958 and I was scared. Who knows how it started? Maybe it was all the CONELRAD stuff on the radio, tests of the Emergency Broadcast System, pictures of H-bombs in Life magazine, strontium 90 in the milk, the times in school when we’d crawl under our desks and cover our heads in practice for the real thing (Winkler 123-124).
President Eisenhower, however, found the prospect of nuclear war unimaginable and the prospect of planning for one a grotesque farce. At a meeting of his generals, he stated “Recovery, [after a nuclear war] would literally be a business of digging ourselves out of the ashes, starting again” (Winkler 119). Given the expense and limited utility of protecting American civilians against the atomic (fission) bomb, much less more-powerful fusion weapons, the US civil defense effort remained limited throughout the Cold War (Winkler 135).
Discussion Questions
Does the film try making a nuclear war appear “winnable”?
How does the film downplay the dangers of nuclear weapons? Why do you think that the filmmakers did this?
Does the film feel funny or “dated,” why?
Do your parents or grandparents remember seeing Duck and Cover or similar films in school? Did these films and other civil defense activities frightening, comforting, or did they just ignore them?
Sources
“Duck and Cover: The Citizen Kane of Civil Defense”
Allan M Winkler, Under a Cloud American Anxiety About the Atom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993 and 1999.
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and ended the American monopoly on nuclear weapons. In a political climate marked by escalating the Cold War standoff, especially following North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950, some American politicians and scientists renewed their interest in protecting civilians from a potential nuclear war. On January 24, 1952, educators in Washington previewed one of the most memorable civil defense films, Duck and Cover. (“Duck and Cover: the Citizen Kane of Civil Defense”)
The film was part of an even larger civil defense campaign aimed at school children that included the distribution of 3 million comic books. On a even more morbid note, New York City issued 2.5 million free dog tags to all school children in order to identify the dead after a nuclear attack (Winkler 115). These preparations created an ambiance of paranoia that underscored the supposedly placid “Leave it to Beaver” childhoods of the generation that grew-up in the 1950s.
Novelist Tim O’Brien later described his childhood experience of the “atomic age.”
When I was a kid I converted my Ping-Pong table into a fallout shelter. Funny? Poignant? A nifty comment on the modern age. Well, let me tell you something. The year was 1958 and I was scared. Who knows how it started? Maybe it was all the CONELRAD stuff on the radio, tests of the Emergency Broadcast System, pictures of H-bombs in Life magazine, strontium 90 in the milk, the times in school when we’d crawl under our desks and cover our heads in practice for the real thing (Winkler 123-124).
President Eisenhower, however, found the prospect of nuclear war unimaginable and the prospect of planning for one a grotesque farce. At a meeting of his generals, he stated “Recovery, [after a nuclear war] would literally be a business of digging ourselves out of the ashes, starting again” (Winkler 119). Given the expense and limited utility of protecting American civilians against the atomic (fission) bomb, much less more-powerful fusion weapons, the US civil defense effort remained limited throughout the Cold War (Winkler 135).
Here is the film
Discussion Questions
Does the film try making a nuclear war appear “winnable”?
How does the film downplay the dangers of nuclear weapons? Why do you think that the filmmakers did this?
Does the film feel funny or “dated,” why?
Do your parents or grandparents remember seeing Duck and Cover or similar films in school? Did these films and other civil defense activities frightening, comforting, or did they just ignore them?
Sources
“Duck and Cover: The Citizen Kane of Civil Defense”
Allan M Winkler, Under a Cloud American Anxiety About the Atom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993 and 1999.
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address: the "Military-Industrial Complex"
Background
This clip, excerpted from President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Farwell Speech,” has an unclear provenance. My best guest is that it came from Eugene Jarecki’s 2005 film Why We Fight. Eisenhower originally delivered on live television and radio on January 17, 1961. The full text of the speech is available at the Eisenhower archives website
The following quotations are from Stephen Ambrose’s Eisenhower: Solider and President (537).
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Ambrose also notes that Eisenhower made several less-known warnings in this speech.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
“”We-you and I, and our government-must avoid plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spirtual heritage.”
Here is the Film
Discussion
Watch the clip and read the full text of Eisenhower’s speech.
Do you think that this except mischaracterizes or takes out of context what Eisenhower was trying to communicate with the American people?
Do you think that Eisenhower’s principal fear was “big government” in all of its forms, or did he find something uniquely dangerous in the expansion of America’s military during the Cold War?
Sources
Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell Address.
This clip, excerpted from President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Farwell Speech,” has an unclear provenance. My best guest is that it came from Eugene Jarecki’s 2005 film Why We Fight. Eisenhower originally delivered on live television and radio on January 17, 1961. The full text of the speech is available at the Eisenhower archives website
The following quotations are from Stephen Ambrose’s Eisenhower: Solider and President (537).
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Ambrose also notes that Eisenhower made several less-known warnings in this speech.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
“”We-you and I, and our government-must avoid plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spirtual heritage.”
Here is the Film
Discussion
Watch the clip and read the full text of Eisenhower’s speech.
Do you think that this except mischaracterizes or takes out of context what Eisenhower was trying to communicate with the American people?
Do you think that Eisenhower’s principal fear was “big government” in all of its forms, or did he find something uniquely dangerous in the expansion of America’s military during the Cold War?
Sources
Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell Address.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr “I Have a Dream”
Background
On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. addressed between 200,000 and 300,000 thousand people who had gatherned at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today (Link to the full speech).
Here is the film
Questions
What kinds of analogies and metaphors does King use to describe the situation faced by African-Americans in the United States and the struggle for civil rights? Which ones do you find the most effective and why?
How does King shift his message within the speech to appeal to different groups in the civil rights movement?
Why do you think that the popular memory of the speech focuses almost entirely on the “I Have a Dream” section?
Sources
Martin Luther King Jr, “I Have a Dream,” the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954 -63. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1988.
On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. addressed between 200,000 and 300,000 thousand people who had gatherned at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today (Link to the full speech).
Here is the film
Questions
What kinds of analogies and metaphors does King use to describe the situation faced by African-Americans in the United States and the struggle for civil rights? Which ones do you find the most effective and why?
How does King shift his message within the speech to appeal to different groups in the civil rights movement?
Why do you think that the popular memory of the speech focuses almost entirely on the “I Have a Dream” section?
Sources
Martin Luther King Jr, “I Have a Dream,” the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954 -63. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1988.
The Politics of Fear, LBJ and “the Daisy Ad”
Background
In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson, having assumed the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination, ran as the Democratic candidate for President against Republican Barry Goldwater. The senator from Arizona was a strident conservative, opposed to the New Deal, and a militant anti-communist. At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, after winning a bitter nomination fight over supporters of moderate New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater stated that “Let me remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is not virtue” (Patterson 549). In the 1964 campaign, LBJ ran on the “philosophy of consensus” against what he termed the Goldwater “philosophy of extremism.” As Johnson stated on the stump “The wrecker can wreck in a day what it takes years for the builder to build. . .And if the only choice between surrender and nuclear war, then we’ll all be dead” (Kearns Goodwin 207). The Johnson campaign also hired the advertising agency DDB to create advertisements that would play on fears, originally voiced by Nelson Rockefeller in the Republican Primaries, that Goldwater was too unstable for his fingers to be on “the nuclear button.” The resulting spot, officially titled “Little Girl-Countdown,” or “Daisy” aired once, on national television, on September 7,1964. It reached approximately 50 million viewers. The controversy accompanied this spot generated additional publicity, it was rebroadcast on multiple news programs. To this day the ad remains a benchmark of the “attack ad” (“Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”).
The following documents were reproduced in the on-line article: “Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”
Memo From Bill Moyers to Presidet Johnson, September 13, 1964
Mr. President:
While most of our radio-television campaign is to project you and your record, we decided - - - as you may recall - - - to run a few earlier spots just to "touch up" Goldwater a bit and remind people that he is not as moderate as his recent speeches want them to believe he is. The idea was not to let him get away with building a moderate image and to put him on the defensive before the campaign is very old.
I think we succeeded in our first spot - - - the one on the control of nuclear weapons.
It caused his people to start defending him right away. Yesterday (Republican National Committee Chairman) Burch said: "This ad implies that Senator Goldwater is a reckless man and Lyndon Johnson is a careful man." Well, that's exactly what we wanted to imply. And we also hoped someone around Goldwater would say it, not us. They did. Yesterday was spent in trying to show that Goldwater isn't reckless.
Furthermore, while we paid for the ad only on NBC last Monday night, ABC and CBS ran it on their news shows Friday. So we got it shown on all three networks for the price of one.
This particular ad was designed to run only one time. We have a few more Goldwater ads, none as hard-hitting as that one was, and then we go to the pro-Johnson, pro-Peace, Prosperity, Preparedness spots.
Goldwater’s response to the ad, given in Indianapolis on September 29, 1964
The homes of America are horrified and the intelligence of Americans is insulted by weird television advertising by which this administration threatens the end of the world unless all-wise Lyndon is given the nation for his very own. I'm not worried about whose finger is on the (nuclear) button in the United States, I'm worried about the itchy finger on the button in Moscow.
In 1984 statement by Bill Moyers on the retrospective impact of "Daisy"
"We advanced the technology and the power [of advertising] far beyond what is desirable for political dialogue. We didn't foresee the implications of serious messages in such an abbreviated form. Our use of the commercial was regrettable. The Frankenstein we helped to build is loose in the world.”
Here is the film
Discussion Questions
What images and filmmaking techniques make this ad effective?
How would a Goldwater supporter counter the claims that this ad makes?
Do you think that the Daisy ad created a new issue, or did it simply repeat and amplify existing sentiments about Goldwater?
Are negative ads a “Frankenstein” in the political process, as Moyers alleges, or are they an important part of Presidential campaigns? Has the role of negative ads changed since “Daisy” aired?
Sources
James T Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996
“Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976, 1991.
In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson, having assumed the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination, ran as the Democratic candidate for President against Republican Barry Goldwater. The senator from Arizona was a strident conservative, opposed to the New Deal, and a militant anti-communist. At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, after winning a bitter nomination fight over supporters of moderate New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater stated that “Let me remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is not virtue” (Patterson 549). In the 1964 campaign, LBJ ran on the “philosophy of consensus” against what he termed the Goldwater “philosophy of extremism.” As Johnson stated on the stump “The wrecker can wreck in a day what it takes years for the builder to build. . .And if the only choice between surrender and nuclear war, then we’ll all be dead” (Kearns Goodwin 207). The Johnson campaign also hired the advertising agency DDB to create advertisements that would play on fears, originally voiced by Nelson Rockefeller in the Republican Primaries, that Goldwater was too unstable for his fingers to be on “the nuclear button.” The resulting spot, officially titled “Little Girl-Countdown,” or “Daisy” aired once, on national television, on September 7,1964. It reached approximately 50 million viewers. The controversy accompanied this spot generated additional publicity, it was rebroadcast on multiple news programs. To this day the ad remains a benchmark of the “attack ad” (“Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”).
The following documents were reproduced in the on-line article: “Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”
Memo From Bill Moyers to Presidet Johnson, September 13, 1964
Mr. President:
While most of our radio-television campaign is to project you and your record, we decided - - - as you may recall - - - to run a few earlier spots just to "touch up" Goldwater a bit and remind people that he is not as moderate as his recent speeches want them to believe he is. The idea was not to let him get away with building a moderate image and to put him on the defensive before the campaign is very old.
I think we succeeded in our first spot - - - the one on the control of nuclear weapons.
It caused his people to start defending him right away. Yesterday (Republican National Committee Chairman) Burch said: "This ad implies that Senator Goldwater is a reckless man and Lyndon Johnson is a careful man." Well, that's exactly what we wanted to imply. And we also hoped someone around Goldwater would say it, not us. They did. Yesterday was spent in trying to show that Goldwater isn't reckless.
Furthermore, while we paid for the ad only on NBC last Monday night, ABC and CBS ran it on their news shows Friday. So we got it shown on all three networks for the price of one.
This particular ad was designed to run only one time. We have a few more Goldwater ads, none as hard-hitting as that one was, and then we go to the pro-Johnson, pro-Peace, Prosperity, Preparedness spots.
Goldwater’s response to the ad, given in Indianapolis on September 29, 1964
The homes of America are horrified and the intelligence of Americans is insulted by weird television advertising by which this administration threatens the end of the world unless all-wise Lyndon is given the nation for his very own. I'm not worried about whose finger is on the (nuclear) button in the United States, I'm worried about the itchy finger on the button in Moscow.
In 1984 statement by Bill Moyers on the retrospective impact of "Daisy"
"We advanced the technology and the power [of advertising] far beyond what is desirable for political dialogue. We didn't foresee the implications of serious messages in such an abbreviated form. Our use of the commercial was regrettable. The Frankenstein we helped to build is loose in the world.”
Here is the film
Discussion Questions
What images and filmmaking techniques make this ad effective?
How would a Goldwater supporter counter the claims that this ad makes?
Do you think that the Daisy ad created a new issue, or did it simply repeat and amplify existing sentiments about Goldwater?
Are negative ads a “Frankenstein” in the political process, as Moyers alleges, or are they an important part of Presidential campaigns? Has the role of negative ads changed since “Daisy” aired?
Sources
James T Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996
“Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976, 1991.
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