Resources – 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.

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.

Meeting People #2 : Survey of Technology

Tuesday, February 13, 2018, Robert and I went to our IT Services to inquire about what technologies are available to us on the USAO campus. Mr. Adeel Siddiqui, the network administrator, met with us and gave us some advice on where to find various tools and equipment, along with people who could be good resources.

Mr. David Duncan is the TV/Video specialist at our school. We learned of his office, phone number and email address. Mr. Duncan could assist us if we desired to use some of the campus audio/video equipment to record anything for our project. He also has drones and possibly voice recorders, which are interesting and practical, respectively. Thankfully, for class purposes, I already have a personal voice recorder which we have used already in doing research.

Motherboard of Toshiba HD-A1. 26 Oct 2008, Simpsons Contributor. Creative Commons.

The next big piece of advice and information we were given by Mr. Siddiqui was how to find all of the computer labs on campus. This is the web page provided to students which lists the location and number of computers to each lab on campus. These computer labs are accessible by all students unless otherwise noted, in which case the person in charge should be easy to reach. There is at least one computer lab listed as public that not many tend to use as it is commonly attributed to being the Art Major lab where they can process their digital art best or access specific programs they are required to use. My understanding is this lab also prints color images, which is not noted on the page.

We were told about the lecture capture which is available for some classes and the school’s intent to put the technology in nearly every classroom on campus. This was pleasant to hear, as well as helpful in giving advice to other students in the future, despite not being immediately relevant to our situation. Mr. Scott Haselwood, director of instructional technology at USAO, is in charge of the lecture capture, as well as any technologies used in the classroom. He could be incredibly helpful with finding additional online tools we do not already know about or troubleshooting with certain tools we are already using. Mr. Haselwood sends a monthly newsletter email regarding technologies in the classroom, each displaying new tools or programs available to students and instructors alike. Mr. Siddiqui gave us Mr. Haselwood’s office, phone and email as well to contact him with any questions.

Overall, I have a sense that any tools or resources we do not have that we may need are either already available or able to be obtained here.

Meeting People #1 : Librarian

Friday, February 2nd, Robert and I visited with our college librarian and archivist, Kelly Brown in her office in Nash Library. Mx. Brown met with us for about twenty minutes and gave us advice regrading our particular library and resources around Oklahoma.

Mx. Brown has been at Nash Library since 2002 and has a bias of ensuring the freedom to read books as individuals desire the information. No books have been challenged at Nash since Mx. Brown has been there, though she is unsure about the Chickasha Public Library. She has recently purchased one hundred books for the school, and in the interest of limiting the inevitable influx of complaints for the new book list she has opted not to email a disclosure of the full list, though she did inform us it consists of books regarding Islamophobia, atheists and white Christians. Due to USAO’s interdisciplinary nature, Mx. Brown finds it difficult to narrow the scope of books she is interested in purchasing.

Along with the Chickasha Public Libraray, the Oklahoman, Oklahoma City Metropolitan Library, Oklahoma Department of Libraries and Oklahoma Library Association were given as good places to contact or search for cases or information regarding cases. She also recommended the ALA website as a precursory search. She advised us to attempt to get an interview with an older librarian in Oklahoma City who would know more history behind the local challenges. Mx. Brown looked up the call numbers and gave us directions to the Literature Suppressed series and Banned in the U.S.A., which we have checked out to use in our research. There is another resource book we cannot check out of the library but now know the location of. Unfortunately, I failed to write down the title of this book and only have the call number.

Another resource our library has of a different kind is the availability of small study spaces within the book stacks called corrals where we will have space to scatter books and be in an uninterrupted quiet location for research. This was my first time visiting the corrals since they were first mentioned for naming. A next step I would look for us to take would be to contact the local librarians and attempt to set up an interview with them regarding their perspectives and information they may have on what we hope to be a more solid local case.

As Mx. Brown is also our local archivist, she gave us some insight into the process from a more personal perspective. She admits personal biases may play into what does and does not get archived and how. She had slight conflict when, after a professor died and she was looking to archive documents, Mx. Brown wanted to archive a letter others deemed too personal and socially difficult regarding that person’s sexuality. I hadn’t previously thought about what information may or may not be chosen to be archived. This brings forward that what one archivist may find important may not have been documented as at the time it was seen as inappropriate or unimportant to keep.