Intro to THIS FABULOUS CENTURY!

What was the wikipedia of my day? Where did I learn that obscure but interesting history or pop-cultural information that I was so hungry for as a kid? Well, we had the World Book Encyclopedia, of course. My parents were middle class, college educated midwesterners - it was the law! But the World Book wasn't sexy... Don't get me wrong, I would use it for homework and sometimes just to find out about stuff, but it didn't have great pictures and it lacked narrative flow.

However, the Time Life Corporation was on the job! They took the journalistic style and photographic excellence from their magazines and built series of books. which they would send out in monthly installments. I don't remember my parents actually getting these books. They might have have been a little snobby about it. When I asked my mother why they didn't get any of the sets, she said, "We already had the World Book. It had everything in the world in it." Did it, Mom? DID IT???

I had friends whose parent's were less satisfied by the status quo, or perhaps more susceptible to a constant stream of advertisements. And I loved poring over their Time Life books. Even in my current library the World War Two series and the Enchanted World series still circulate.

I was intrigued, when I was looking in the 917s the last time I was shelving, to find This Fabulous Century. This series was published in 1970 - possibly with an eye towards the bicentennial. I don't know how successful it was, it doesn't have its own wikipedia page. But it is of interest to me because it would have been written when I was a little kid - just starting to be curious about America and what that means. The bicentennial had us all patriotism-crazy and this fed right into that vibe.

I don't remember reading reading this series, specifically, so I can't call this a reread, but I am reading this series with purpose. My plan is to read these books with an eye towards representation. I just finished ONE CRAZY SUMMER by Rita Williams-Garcia and there was a section where the three sisters ages 7-11 talk about how exciting it is to see a black face on television and how they kept track of every time Lieutenant Uhura spoke on STAR TREK. They were out of their minds with excitement about the show JULIA that was about to come out. I get this to a lesser degree because I remember never seeing fat people on tv or in movies, unless they were the butt of jokes. Even now, I get excited about a great unapologetic fat-girl role model.

Anyway, since this series was probably the most populist history resource outside of school, I have decided to read it looking for how people of color, women and the LGBTQIA+ community are presented, if at all. This is not to hate on Time Life or that fabulous century between 1870-1970, but rather to see how representation might influence the mindset of people my age and older. These books are 50 years old, I don't expect them to be held to the standards I would require of an overarching American history series today, but I would like to see what the actual numbers are.

Is the black experience reflected here at all? Are women anything other than an appendage to their men? Is the gay experience indeed fabulous enough for this series? One would hope, but I'm not betting the farm. I like to think that we are finally, as a society, discussing the fact that representation matters. As a white, middle-class little girl I didn't have the understanding to even look for female role models, much less POC or gay - so what was the impact on my perspective of history? Let us agree that it was not positive.

So here we go! This will be a look at the narrative sweep that I was presented with as a kid. I will touch on some of the interesting topics that come up, but with the understanding that it was the "agreed-upon" history for so long, and yet it leaves out a great many Americans' experience.