Carol Stabile—director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon, and professor, School of Journalism and Communication and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies—has received the 2013 Farrar Media and Civil Rights History Award for her article “The Typhoid Marys of the Left; Gender, Race and the Broadcast Blacklist” published in the Summer 2011 issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. Her article was one of a competitive field of entries judged by a national panel of experts in the field. Stabile will present at a special standalone session at the symposium on her current research. The session is a highlight of the symposium.
Here is what the judges had to say about her article:
“Drawing on a rich array of primary sources, Carol Stabile’s essay offers a fresh look at the intersection of anti-communism and civil rights activism during the 1950s, focusing on the broadcast industry as a primary arena of struggle. In the process, she draws attention to two figures, African American musician Hazel Scott and white actor Jean Muir. Both were active proponents of racial justice and equality. Scott is particularly notable as a black woman who briefly hosted her own television show in the 1950s. The essay convincingly demonstrates how the views of a small minority, which aggressively defined civil rights as a sign of communist sympathies, could effectively leverage the power of the federal government and corporate sponsors to marginalize and effectively ‘silence’ individuals sympathetic to the cause of racial justice during the 1950s, a formative decade for television as well as for the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to being well-written, the piece has media and civil rights as its central focus It uses a wide range of historical sources and captures the mood of the period with an account of how race and gender were connected to and used to blacklist media professionals.”
