The Books That…
I’m boxing my books to clear the basement for new carpeting and wall painting, both long overdue. It’s a slow process as I tend to peruse each one and consider its place in my collection. Quite a few volumes represent steps forward (or sideways) for me, and occasionally turning points. These might be labeled “the books that….” The books that made me love history. Biography. Epic tales and intimate stories. The books that inspired me to write. To leave my comfort zone and jump headlong into people and places I knew nothing about. To write Salt Warriors and try my hand at a forgotten child kidnapping. They are the books that grabbed and shook me. I’ll tip my hat to them in coming posts.
Writing grassroots history
I think it was C.L. Sonnichsen who coined the title “grassroots historian.” Certainly, he wrote about and defined such non-academic (and often non-academically trained) historians in an article of the same name appearing in a 1970 issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly (Vol. 73, No. 3, January, 1970, pp. 381-392). You can find the article at http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/30238074?uid=3739960&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21100835322691 . I can’t speak for other fields of history, but in the niche of Old West lawmen/outlaws/gunfighters/armed & dangerous sodbusters, the grassroots historian probably has been responsible for much, if not most of the discoveries of the past 35 or more years concerning the details of the lives, acts of violence, and deaths of such men (and occasional women), and of the many men and women who were witness to or wrapped up in their stories. The Journal of the Wild West History Association and the publications of its parent organizations, NOLA and WOLA, have provided the main outlet for the grassroots historian’s discoveries and fresh interpretations. WILD WEST magazine, the old TRUE WEST, and, to a lesser extent under its latest incarnation, the new TRUE WEST, have also provided the “roots” with a forum for their work.
If these journals and trade magazines provide the stage for the grassroots historian’s work, the discussion websites serve as the coffee shops and neighborhood taverns where the work of professional and grassroots historians alike can be lauded, picked over, and sometimes picked clean. While it would not be accurate to say that discussions in these forums are universally about an author’s facts—whether or not the author has uncovered “new” facts, whether or not an author has cherry picked them, whether or not the interpretation is fresh or holds water, etc.–facts (and factoids) and their meaning are king on the boards.
What is largely if not entirely missing from the field of Old West lawman/outlaw/gunfighter/enraged citizen studies is any meaningful concern about writing. Has the author shaped the facts into a story? Or is it a string of factual beads? This happened and this happened and that happened. Is there any evidence at all that the writer cares about the reader? Is there any evidence that he or she edited and polished and did it again? A writer’s got to know his limitations. As expert as he or she is at uncovering and assembling facts, does he care enough to get some editing help when he needs it?
I’ll admit it. I’ve been writing for 40 years and publishing for 15. And it was only two weeks ago that I attended my first writer’s conference. Sure, it was largely filled with novelists and would-be novelists. I met several authors of the next Twilight, and a few more who aim to bring on that dystopian future we’ve been waiting for. But those of us who write about and footnote the unruly past would do well to pay attention to what the best novelists, and the agents who handle them, have to say about carefully crafting and polishing that first sentence in chapter 1 , about breathing life into our historical characters. About caring as much for the reader’s enjoyment as we do about the number of horses in the vacant lot.
Looking for family papers of former FBI Special Agents
While I have personnel files for most the of FBI Special Agents who are the leading characters in my book-in-progress on the FBI’s investigation into the 1934 kidnapping of 6-year-old June Robles, I would like to flesh out this material with family photos, letters, and other papers dealing with the following agents (referred to only by initials in many documents):
Harold Edward Andersen / H.E. Andersen
Orville C. Dewey / O.C. Dewey
Joseph Edward Patrick Dunn / J.E.P. Dunn
Carlton J. Endres / C.J. Endres
Chapmon Fletcher
James Malcolm O’Leary / J.M. O’Leary
Enos Sandberg
Manuel Sorola
Lewis Charles Taylor / L.C. Taylor
Clarence D. White / C.D. White
The personnel files of Andersen and Dewey were severely gutted by the Bureau for unknown reasons, and so family papers would be especially helpful in their cases.
PaulCoolBooks.com Redesigned!
Welcome to my new website. Here you’ll find all the news about my writings, past, current, and planned. I may not blog the recommended 3x a week (or is it 3x a day?), but I will from time to time take you on side trips flowing from my research into the FBI’s investigation into the 1934 kidnapping of June Robles, my thoughts about the craft of writing and the business of publishing history, and anything else I want to draw your attention to. And the first thing on that list is my thanks to Jerry and Michelle Dorris of AuthorSupport.com for creating this site.
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