Mary Stuckey

There have been numerous studies of the frontier myth as it operated in the early republic and throughout our history. As a result of this work, we know a lot about the frontier myth, its history, elements, and ideological functioning. We know less, however, about how that myth developed when its ideological elements met the empirical realities of western emigration. I argue that four specific cultural fictions—erasure, civilization, community, and democracy— are integral elements of the larger fiction of the American frontier myth. By understanding them through the vehicle of the Donner Party narratives, we can deepen our understanding of that myth and the ways in which it operates and resonates throughout the national culture and contributes to the development of American national identity

AsIunderstand it, circulation impinges on every aspect of rhetorical theory and criticism. FromMichael Warner’s insight that circulation begets communities through Michael McGee’s important work on fragmentation and Lester Olson’s observation that recirculation always involves the repurposing of texts, to Benjamin Lee and Edward LiPalma’s argument that by performing and circulating performances of institutions and social roles those institutions and roles are created, it is clear that the logics of circulation are fundamental to the study of public address. Public address scholars, though, do not always place their work within the context of those logics. The authors in this forum take that endeavor as their starting point, seeking to understand how questions of circulation impel and impede our work as rhetorical critics and theorists. They examine questions of purpose and of repurposing; they explore the ways texts fragment and combine; they attend to issues of authorship and audience. Most interesting, to me, is that each essay entails an argument about the ethics of producing and criticizing texts. The essays included here range across time, from Jacksonian America to the contemporary presidency. They include discussions of sound bites, presidential speeches, indigenous authorship, the implications of a decolonial perspective for rhetorical theory, cartoons, documentary fılm, twitter, and civil rights–era

By extending the personalized presidency from the institution to the individual president while undercutting the bureaucracy's reliance on expertise and by attacking democratic norms and values, Donald Trump undermined both the executive as an institution and his own ability to govern These elements of his presidential rhetoric are clarified with reference to Trump's relationships with the media, the executive branch, and the mass public, and are distilled in his handling of the global pandemic [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Presidential Studies Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use This abstract may be abridged No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract (Copyright applies to all Abstracts )

ABSTRACT Franklin D. Roosevelt is strongly connected to his “Little White House” (LWH) in Warm Springs, Georgia. The sites constituting the LWH articulate a public memory of FDR where Warm Springs is central to understanding the president's character and accomplishments. As a result of these choices the narrative developed at the LWH deflects attention from racism, the state's history of segregation, and FDR's own poor record on civil rights, and it recenters FDR's encounters with polio victims and the White rural poor as central to his transformation into what the site calls a “man of the people” who championed the New Deal. The memory work at this site illuminates the ways in which historical sites are reflections of the politics of those who manage them and indicates the ways in which the past seeps into the present as well as how the present influences our understanding of the past.

This essay considers questions about civility raised in the discourse responding to the January 2011 shootings in Tucson, Arizona. Focusing on two sites of discord—the debate in the media and President Obama’s address at the memorial service for the victims—our analysis identifies two conceptions of civility and their corresponding assumptions about democracy and community, provides a critique of both conceptions, and offers a conceptual framework for rhetorical critics studying civility.

... and Instrumental Effects of Presidential Rhetoric Mary E. Stuckey The Handbook of Rhetoric and Public Address Edited by Shawn J. Parry-Giles and J. Michael Hogan © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-17813-6 Page 3. 294 Mary E. Stuckey ...

Soon after FDR's death, Harry Truman called Jesse Jones, administrator of the RFC, to tell him that the president had appointed a federal loan official. "Did he make the appointment before he died?" Jones asked. "No," replied Truman grimly, "he made it just now." This story highlights the peculiar problems of vice presidents who succeed presidents of their own party, whether because of death, resignation, or election. These successor presidents must establish themselves as the legitimate heirs of the past president and at the same time define their own political identity as distinct from that of their predecessor. Regardless of the specific circumstances surrounding the succession, presidential heirs all share this rhetorical challenge and respond to it with similar rhetorical strategies, labeled here the "rhetoric of succession." By understanding this genre of presidential discourse, we can deepen our understanding of the presidency as a rhetorical institution (Simons and Aghazarian; Fisher, "Genre"; Campbell and Jamieson), and of the use rhetorical genres in the study of politics in general. Largely as a result of the Reagan administration, scholars now focus on the increasing importance of presidential speech (Cesar, Thurow, Tulis, and Bessette; Fisher, "Rhetorical Fiction"; Hart; Kernell; Lowi; Tulis). Instead of working within a primarily closed system of insiders and elites, presidents since FDR favor communications strategies that create and invoke public support (Denton and Hahn; Kernell). This public support is most tenuous during presidential transitions, when the mantle of authority shifts from one president to another (Pfiffner). If we are to understand the presidency, we must also understand the dynamics of the presidential discourses surrounding the creation and maintenance of public support. This paper examines one of those discourses, the rhetoric of succession, by focusing on the public speech of recent presidents of succession: Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George Bush. While their presidencies span over forty years and the specifics of their political situations vary widely, their rhetorical problem was very similar: legitimating their claim to the presidency and establishing a basis for their presidential leadership. The rhetorical problem of establishing themselves in office faces every new president regardless of the manner of their succession. However, presidents who inherit the office from a member of their own party, especially if they have served in the administration of their predecessor, face a unique set of challenges and opportunities for leadership.

Theodore Roosevelt was an important figure in the development of the presidency as a primary and authoritative source for definitions of national identity. Through an analysis of three specific rhetorical moves Roosevelt made in arguments over the “proper” interpretation of the ...

Franklin D. Roosevelt is justifiably understood as an eloquent speaker, a master of radio, and a public communication par excellence. These traits are often seen as fundamental to his political success. What is often overlooked, however, in the tendency to praise Roosevelt’s communicative skill, is his equal dedication to organizational politics. This essay examines the importance of those politics in orchestrating the 1936 victory, in an election that is widely considered to be among the most important electoral contests in the twentieth century. Relying on papers and documents form the FDR Presidential Library, I will examine four main elements of that campaign: the polling of Emil Hurja, the organizational skill of Mary Dewson, the local organization through entities such as the Good Neighbor League, and the public rhetoric that tied it all together. Emil Hurja, an econometrician and White House pollster, is widely considered to be the creator of the “tracking poll.” His ability to predict election results was nothing short of phenomenal, especially given the technology available to him. He was also an important influence on policy, and Hurja may well be the motivating force behind policies like the decision to channel resources to districts with narrow majorities rather than those that had voted overwhelmingly Democratic in 1932. Actions like this may have had a great deal to do with the creation of a solid Democratic majority in 1936.Second, the Roosevelt White House became one of the first to actively seek out and organize voting from what are now understood as interest groups: women, African Americans, labor, and so on became understood as collectively important to governing and as crucial elements of a successful Democratic campaign. No one had more to do with organizing and mobilizing such constituencies that Mary Dewson, Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. The innovative mobilization tactics she pioneered are indicative of the ways in which the Roosevelt campaign sought to include previously overlooked constituents.Third, the Roosevelt campaign sought to organize people around religion as well as economic interests. These attempts are most evident in the creation of Good Neighbor Leagues, ostensibly non-partisan organizations that were nonetheless dedicated to providing the White House with both information about the state of the nation and the opinions of its citizens and a veritable army of already organized volunteers. Again, the establishment of such organizations was unprecedented.None of these organizational innovations would have been effective, of course, without a competent candidate, and Roosevelt as a campaigner was considerably better than competent. The final aspect of the essay examines the campaign craft of this most impressive public speaker, with a particular eye toward how he made use of the organization and information provided for him by the previous three elements. Franklin Roosevelt had significant influence over the institution of the presidency; we are less likely to look for his influence on modern campaigns. This essay indicates the importance and the depth of that influence.

The presidency was once a carefully scripted and carefully controlled site of speech production. Today's media environment has not lessened efforts at control, but it has rendered these efforts increasingly difficult. Previously disruptive and disfluent ways of speaking now serve a useful role in presidential address, allowing mass-mediated audiences to apprehend the presidency in ways that appear to be more intimate and more authentic than careful scripting allows. In response to this new and fast-evolving rhetorical landscape, this essay develops an analytically, historically, and conceptually wide-ranging argument, inviting rhetorical scholars to supplement their abiding interest in traditional forms of presidential eloquence with a commitment to the study of presidential disfluency. Awkward pauses, verbal hiccups, botched colloquialisms, confessionals, and overly personalized speech—all transgress the norms and expectations of presidential eloquence, allowing scholars to reflect on the longstanding, rhetorical discrepancy between presidential speech as it appears in the official historical record and presidential speech as mass-mediated audiences actually hear it.

Page 1. AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL 23:2 (1 999) 27-52 Rhetorical Exclusion: The Government's Case Against American Indian Activists, AIM, and Leonard Peltierl TOHN SANCHEZ, MARY E. STUCKEY, AND RICHARD MORRIS ...