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To understand the unique perspective that a material culture approach offers this investigation, it is worthwhile to briefly contrast the methods of such an approach with those of a conventional historical analysis. The historical interpretation of people, places, and events has traditionally been based upon research in written documents or oral traditions . Recorded accounts can capture infinite levels of minute detail. While the written word is unquestionably powerful in this regard, it also has its limitations. First, mistakes in written records do occur, and the historians of today read and rely on these mistaken accounts of the past. Thus it is now considered a standard practice to obtain a consensus of accounts from different sources before a historian places a stamp of approval on any explanation of a past event. Second, not all human behavior is recorded with the same level of coverage or precision. With the proliferation of written documentation, especially in the last two centuries, some of these gaps in recording human behavior are starting to diminish. These vast increases in the production of written records, however, still do not always result in an equitable distribution of perspectives. As has always been the problem, the recorded opinions of the few sometimes appear more important and widespread than they usually are in reality. Authors’ biases are inextricably linked to their prose, and this work is certainly no exception. These biases, however, are often ignored by the readers, and written documentation assumes a sense of truth sometimes too powerful to overcome. In delving into the topics of this chapter, politics and reform, written accounts are numerous, and it is precisely on this ocean of rhetoric that material culture evidence may shed brilliant new light. Some of the biggest lies ever told are to be found on gravestones. —the real billy sunday (Brown) Chapter 4 For the Love of a Nation Mixing Religion and Politics A painted fire never boiled an egg.—Billy Sunday Speaks! For Billy Sunday, the line between religious morals and political action was blurry, if it existed at all. Politics was simply morals put into action, and if there was any place on the American landscape that needed a healthy dose of revivalism, it was, in Sunday’s opinion, the legislative chambers of statehouses and Capitol Hill. Although Sunday never ran for elected office, he maintained close contact with those who did, for he knew that if his reforms were to be enacted, they must pass through elected officials first. If that required crossing party lines or stepping on political toes, Billy Sunday did whatever was necessary to get his reforms passed. He took his issues of women’s suffrage, sex education in public schools, and the banning of amusements to the ears of city mayors, governors, state legislators, members of Congress, and even presidents. It is not surprising that presidents wanted to befriend Sunday given the influence that he wielded among the common citizens. Sunday had autographed photographs from William H. Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. Correspondence came from many of the same individuals, as well as Theodore Roosevelt, and a fivevolume set of History of the American People, personally signed in 1916 by its author, Woodrow Wilson, was a gift from the New Jersey state government (fig. 27). In the years following Sunday’s death, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower sent photographs and gifts to Nell Sunday, although she decided to hide Truman’s photo behind a picture of the 1950s baseball commissioner Ford Frick because of ongoing tensions between the Sunday household and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s former vice president (fig. 27). In fact, every U.S. president from 1900 through 1960 is represented by a personal gift or memento in the home. That said, the only artifact in the Sunday collection from FDR was the telegram of condolence to Nell following Billy’s death in 1935. FDR was the incarnation of many causes Sunday fought against. First, Roosevelt made good on his campaign promise to sign the repeal of the Prohibition amendment immediately after taking office. Second, and almost as bad in Sunday’s eyes, Roosevelt’s New Deal programs appeared to be dangerously socialistic, with a large, centralized federal government taking charge of fixing people’s problems instead of citizens seeking solutions on their own in a free-market economy or, better yet, through For the Love of a Nation 56 [3.144.113.197] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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