Tim DuRoche laid down the challenge. “Have you read Robert Johnston’s book?”  I hadn’t, but, after a summer of listening to the Mel Blanc Lectures, it was time.

Johnston’s book, The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question Of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, takes the political temperature of Portland’s middle class during the city’s rapid growth at the turn of the century. Small business owners Frederick and Eva Blank were part of that population spurt, arriving from San Francisco in 1915 with their two sons, Henry and six year old Melvin Jerome.

In his award winning book, Johnston examines four civic leaders – Will Daly, Harry Lane,Lora C. Little and William U’Ren – who helped shape Portland’s political landscape during that period. Princeton University Press describes The Radical Middle Class this way:

By examining in particular the independent small business sector or petit bourgeoisie, using Progressive Era Portland Oregon as a case study, Robert Johnston shows that class still matters in America. But it matters only if the politics and culture of the leading player in affairs of class, the middle class, is dramatically reconceived

Johnston puts the concept of middle class under a microscope. What is the middle class, and how does it differ from the working class? Is there a line? Where do we draw it? Examining Portland’s voting records, precinct by precinct, Johnston found working class interests receiving unexpectedly wide support.  During this period, where one might expect to find the “middle class” small business owners identifying upwards with the interests of management, Johnston instead found the voting records indicating the opposite – the owners of small businesses identified downwards, and supported the unions.

What impact did this deep populist streak have on the young Portlander who would later become one of our country’s most skilled pop culture practitioners?

On Feb. 8, 2012, Robert Johnston will come to Portland to sit down with Anne Richardson, director of the Mel Blanc Project, for an onstage conversation to explore this question. We will be joined onstage by PSU professor David Horowitz, author of The People’s Voice: A Populist Cultural History Of Modern America.

Thank you to Thomas Luckett, chairman of PSU’s History department, and to John Rowe, of PSU’s Phi Alpha Theta, for partnering with the Mel Blanc Project to make this event possible. Thank you to Carl Abbott for overseeing the matchmaking.

The final Mel Blanc Lecture, an onstage conversation between Robert Johnston, Anne Richardson and David Horowitz, will take place on Feb. 8, 2012 at 7:00 PM.

It is free and open to the public. Find us in PSU’s Smith Center 333.

Thank you, Tim DuRoche, for the kick in the pants!

(Yes, this post is cross posted at  www.melblancproject.wordpress.com.)

5th Avenue Cinema is presenting a series of rediscovered student films made at PSU’s historic Center for the Moving Image, an institution which predated (and helped to produce) the Northwest Film Center. Graduate student Heather Petrocelli is doing research about the Center, and happens to work for 5th Ave Cinema – so voila! – this series will take place right there on campus.

Public History Graduates (PHiG) is screening Lens on the Community, a series of free public programs presenting films from the Center for the Moving Image (CMI) from the Tom T. Taylor collection at the Portland State Library. These films that represent, interpret, and shape the distinct communities that constitute the greater Portland metropolitan area.

The program kicks off on October 9th at 2pm at 5th Avenue Cinema. PHiG will present the CMI film Riches of a City (1975), which documents the development of the Skidmore District and recounts the struggle to bring this downtown Portland neighborhood into the modern era while preserving its cultural and historical significance. Dr. Carl Abbott (School of Urban Studies and Planning) and Bill Hawkins (Architectural Heritage Center) will be the guest speakers who will offer insights into the film and the district, then and now.

Lens on the Community is made possible by a generous grant from the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultural Trust and the cooperation of Portland State University Library’s Special Collections.

What: Len on the Community: Riches of a City
When: Sunday October 9, 2011 at 2pm
Where: 5th Ave Cinema, 510 SW Hall Street (between 5th and 6th)
Cost: Free

The first film, about the preservation of the Skidmore District, draws its title from the words engraved on Skidmore Fountain “Good citizens are the riches of a city.”

The fountain was donated by Stephen G. Skidmore. The words were donated by C. E. S. Wood, a  corporate lawyer by day/rabble rouser by night who helped found Portland Art Museum and Multnomah County Library, among many other civic minded deeds, none of which impressed his wife when he asked her for a divorce because he had fallen in love with a preacher’s wife. Portland society sided with Wife #1, so Wood spent his last two decades in romantic exile in California with Wife #2.

Maybe this proves that “Good husbands are the riches of the city”, because Wood’s wealth, what was left after providing for his first wife and five children, went with him to California.

C. E. S. Wood was played by Sam Elliott, also a Portlander, in the television movie, I Will Fight No More Forever.