210: Death Before Dishonor: Shame and Reputation in American History

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2018

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Ed, Nathan and Joanne discuss the importance of honor throughout American history. We’ll explore how 19th-century honor culture demanded that a man’s good name be saved by any means necessary — even murder. And we’ll consider how the concept lives on today.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National
0:04.2	Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert
0:08.2	Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
0:15.4	From Virginia Humanities, this is backstory.
0:23.9	Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.
0:29.2	I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:30.4	I'm Nathan Connolly and I'm Ed Ayers.
0:32.9	Joanne, Nathan, our colleague, Brian Ballon, I are all historians.
0:37.0	Each week we explore the history of a topic that's been in the news.
0:41.0	Now, you may have heard the name Blake Ferenholt and the news earlier this year.
0:44.8	Ferenholt was a Republican Congressman from Texas.
0:48.0	He resigned to April after it was revealed that he had used taxpayer money to settle
0:53.0	a sexual harassment suit by former staff member.
0:56.6	But that's not the only time Ferenholt made the news.
0:59.3	In 2017, he was so angry at three fellow Republicans,
1:03.9	senators who opposed the GOP health care overhaul that he challenged them to a
1:08.8	duel or would have if they weren't ladies.
1:12.4	So Ferenholt said if it was a guy from South Texas, I might ask him to step
1:17.7	outside and settle this Aaron Burr style.
1:22.7	Well, this reminds me of two other congressmen.
1:26.0	William Graves from Kentucky and Jonathan Silly of Maine.
1:30.2	Come on. Come on.
	...

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