Opinions – Max Corbin Course Blog

Progress Report #3 : Possible New Connections

Some people are willing to come forward at the first mention or are easy to find within a few searches. For example, it didn’t take much to realize asking to speak with the board members or superintendent may be one way to gain information from Tulsa Schools. People who may not immediately come to mind are extended family.

One of my great-aunts, now the oldest of my grandmother’s siblings, lived in Tulsa for a large portion of her life. I did not recall this information and was reminded on my visit home this previous weekend during which I got sick. My great-aunt Karen lived in Tulsa with her now-late husband. During this time, she was a hairstylist. When I traveled to Tulsa, I did a short Facebook Live during a break to keep myself awake and interacting with familiar people. A week or so later, Karen visited my grandmother and asked if I had gone to speak with one lady in particular. I am still working on getting the details, but it appears as if Karen was a hairstylist for a woman who may have been at Edison Prep School in 1960 when The Catcher in the Rye was challenged. I have yet to be able to tell Robert about this possible break-though as I have been attempting to rest and he is traveling.

Baby Shower Gift. Bobbie, c. 2000. Painting.

In other news, we are taking feedback to heart. While this will be the only post to any website I will be able to make this week due to a lack of internet access at home, I will still be using physical copies of information to create the information to be posted on the site. Robert and I hope to have a large quantity of our content prepared and on the site by next Monday. Details are important to each of us, and this may be supported by the picture included in this post. I have had this painting around my entire life and only a few days ago realized it said “Tulsa World” on the red mailbox because at the time Mz. Bobbie lived in Tulsa.

This week may be a bit of downtime due to illness and stress, however there will still be work put in to maintain our schedule.

Meeting People #4 : Post-Interview

Thursday, Robert and I met with Dr. Finck at USAO. While we unfortunately did not gain as much information as we had hoped, Dr. Finck was still a wonderful resource and pointed us in other directions to further our search. He had not yet read The Catcher in the Rye, though did understand the stance of wanting to censor from the parental level if something were to be considered pornographic. This was a large claim in our case, so having a parental viewpoint aside from that of our own is useful.

Desk Capture. Max Corbin, 12 March 2018. Image.

Dr. Finck explained his area of expertise to us, which is good for future class references. We were directed to Dr. Hester, the American Indian Studies and Oklahoma History instructor here; Dr. Anderson, one of the Literature instructors here; and Dr. Rees, who may have instructed a class which discussed The Catcher in the Rye. That information will be followed-up on in the interview this Friday.

Dr. Brown was our interview last Friday and also incredibly helpful. She discussed censorship in general with us and reiterated parts of why Catcher is so controversial. She invited us to come back if we had any other questions for her and seemed whole-heartedly interested in our project.

Robert and I interviewed Dr. Hester today. His faculty page lists him correctly as the American Indian Studies professor and advisor, however there is little to no mention of his involvement with Oklahoma History outside of Native American context. This lead us to believe we may not receive helpful information from him. We were absolutely wrong, however, because Dr. Hester helped enormously in the context of Oklahoma in general. He corrected us on the belief of political lag, citing it as more of a strange inverted social atmosphere. Oklahoma began as a socialist-leaning state, housing more socialists than New York at one time, and during the era of the Tulsa case flipped to conservative views. Oklahoma does, however, have a social lag that can be about seven to ten years in length. This may be important as we look further into the historical context of the Tulsa challenge of Catcher in the Rye.

Overall, much information was gained from these interviews. While we may not have found the exact insight we were looking for, information was uncovered. One important take-away from these interviews, for me, was none of these individuals had heard of the Tulsa challenge much if at all. This really emphasized to me how much bannings in general get covered, but also just how far people were willing to go to in order to cover unfavorable events.

Meeting People #3 : Interview Prep

On the morning of March 5, I received emails from both USAO professors who were contacted and both are willing to do interviews. The process to select these instructors included personal experience in classes with them and reading the
university’s faculty and staff directory page. Dr. Brenda Brown is the American Literature expert at this campus and Dr. James Finck is the American History expert. As our book was published in the United States and our cases will all be located within the United States, we decided these two would be the best candidates on this campus to interview. Below are questions we intend to ask each interviewee.

Precautionary

May we record this interview?

May we transcribe this interview and quote it?

May we place this interview on the USAO project site for historical and educational purposes?

Both

What controversies arose during the time period given?

How was censorship handled during this time period?

Does the 1960 Tulsa banning of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger make you think of anything significant?

Dr. James Finck

What was the American political climate during the 1950s to the 1960s?

What were some of the domestic policies at the time?

Do you know the Oklahoma political climate during the aforementioned time period?

Who were in administrative positions within the federal and Oklahoma state governments of this time?

Dr. Brown

What were the literary movements during the 1960s, and how did they impact Oklahoma if at all?

Do you know of the controversies surrounding The Catcher in the Rye and what is your opinion on it?

What do you know of the bannings of The Catcher in the Rye in Oklahoma?

Old book bindings at the Merton College library. Tom Murphy VII. 25 August 2005, Image.

Robert has also contacted some of his previous instructors from another college to attempt to obtain information from them. To my understanding, one is offering library resources which may or may not be available at USAO and others may be willing to give interviews. If necessary, more instructors will be contacted for interviews. The transcripts should be available by the end of next week on the team project site.

Progress Report #2 : Furthering Research

Thus far, Robert and I have chosen our book, chosen our local case and begun to connect nation-wide instances of challenges and bans. Our book is absolutely The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and we are looking into the instance of a Tulsa teacher leaving the district in 1960.

Robert has emailed a school is Issquah, Washington, regarding their challenge in 1978. While we have not yet heard from them, this information will be used in a StoryMap to connect cases. As of the writing of this post, Robert has just heard back from the Oklahoma Historical Society and his email is being forwarded. I will soon be emailing another member of the Tulsa Public School District Administration to find information regarding the Tulsa case.

On Friday, February 23rd, I traveled from Chickasha to Tulsa in order to visit the Tulsa City-County Library. While there, I discovered multiple newspaper clippings in the vertical files for ourselves and others to use. These ranged from directly discussing the Tulsa teacher leaving and reasons for the book challenge, to how the challenge was used in what we are calling the “Smutmobile Case” a year later. There was also an article regarding Muskogee banning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Files Pulled from the Vertical Files. Max Corbin, 23 Feb 2018. Image.

The Smutmobile Case lead to legislation in 1961 regarding the distribution of pornographic material. While similar laws have been on the books since at least 1958 from what I could find, this was a major instance of civilian protest which influenced the outcome. Our Tulsa case was mentioned in the news articles regarding the hearing as evidence censorship was necessary to protect the children from the evils of the world.

After making copies of the articles I found, I realized how much time I had left before the end of the school day and decided to visit Edison Prep to try to find more information. When I arrived, the office personnel seemed enthusiastic to help, although they knew what I sought could not be found at the school. I was given directions to the location of the School Board and went across town to visit there. At Tulsa Schools Board of Education, I met with the Board Clerk for a few minutes. She showed me “The Vault” where minutes are kept and gave me contact information for another person who was not presently in and could better help me. She was incredibly interested in the case of censorship and enthusiastic to provide as much support as possible. She also gave me a small idea of how challenges are progressed in the Tulsa Public School system.

Overall, I had a fantastic and fruitful day trip to Tulsa. The library is simply beautiful and the people were more than happy to interact and help. There was little, if any, red tape I had to step through to talk face-to-face with someone even on a moment’s notice. My next step is to email the person whom I was directed to and see what information she has after recovering from the flu. I will also be compiling information for the StoryMap.

Progress Report #1 : Choosing a Book

Book censorship seems to be more common than I originally thought, though it has been difficult to gauge as the cases for Oklahoma seem to be fewer than I would have anticipated. Reasons for censorship are wildly different from one another. I had not imagined before this that a book could be successfully challenged for profanity or inclusion of the LGBT community. As someone involved in the LGBT community, I find the erasure of information available to students to be disturbing at the least. While the youngest students may not necessarily need access to the information provided in books such as I am Jazz, older students who are trying to flourish with their identities may be hindered without the information ready.

Robert and I have decided to investigate further into instances of The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien being banned. We chose this book as we are both enthusiasts of high fantasy adventures and did not anticipate these books being challenged for the reasons we discovered. Tolkien was a Catholic and the series has been challenged for being anti-religious despite the various analogies present in the work. This caused us to take a dive into the work to discover where these books are removed and if it is only from curriculum or if libraries are having them removed from shelves.

I personally seem to be having issues finding specific individual cases of bans, finding instead lists of commonalities or the ever-popular Banned Book Week read projects. I did find one string of challenges in researching books for us to choose from involving Edmond Public Schools and Kite Runner. From 2014 to 2017 there have been challenges about the book being used in a sophomore level class. While I adore this book, I do have to agree that the graphic content could be a little much for sophomores to stomach, especially with the various parental circumstances surrounding students. A few selections from the book could cause mental upset if not properly discussed and parents may not be willing to discuss the contents of this book with their children.

Thankfully, WordPress is relatively familiar to me. The limitations placed for the purposes of this course threw me off initially. I could not edit and place an image for my blog and when Robert found he could not either I decided to leave the program be. I am glad to see the tasks such as categorization are still available as I enjoy organization of my technological assets.

Finally, I worked with StoryMap JS this weekend. It was a little strange as I had not used it before, however the demo during class proved to be the most beneficial information I received. I now feel more comfortable with this tool. I attempted to highlight on my favorite books through some important points in my life.

I feel confident going into this week and hope to schedule an appointment with the librarian for early on to gain insight to our college’s literary and research variety.