Beyond Truman. Douglas A. Dixon
did his soldiering experience fit with the larger understanding of the Second World War? How might we characterize Ferrell’s matrimonial courtship? Seemingly disparate events, they present a puzzle to those who would draw a straight-line narrative of reality, one with the certainty of truth or appeal to moral judgment. While of no wider historical significance beyond themselves, as Ferrell no doubt would agree, the three stories stand as postmodern allegories, as antithesis, to the Ferrell way of knowing what happened.
In pursuing these questions of the past, Ferrell himself had some advice: Search the archives.17 Some historians have labeled such artifacts “surrogates of the past,” a phrase used to describe remnants that have a history of their own.18 It is argued that this history is separate from what happened. How Ferrell, in fact, got into Yale, for example, may be impossible to know, but the documents that rest at various repositories have their own tale, in collaboration with the sense making of whomever chooses to interpret them, and those who made them available or did not. Ferrell himself had some choice as to what he would save (or create) or not for posterity and for reasons known to him alone. Processes of evaluating evidence, that is experiencing evidence and applying inductive reasoning, are shared by both postmodernists and “scientists of the past” or empiricists.19 But the two types of historical approaches differ on the meaning they impute to artifacts, and indeed, whether one can recover “the” or any past, whether bias toward it can be minimized, or whether a coherent, singular, truthful narrative is possible. Differences are also rooted in the end goals for historical study. In the episodes presented here, the prevalence of evidence and a sense of narrative and biography drove the process initially.
Another Ferrell recommendation guided the search: Find the incongruencies, follow the evidence to address them, and create an accurate and faithful narrative that solves the puzzle.20 As one reads the narrative elaborated below, it is hard to overlook evidence first encountered; that is, course grades, exam feedback, military correspondence, parental reflections, Ferrell’s conjecture, and so forth. The initial artifacts reviewed raised questions about how Ferrell found his way into a prestigious graduate history program at Yale. The head scratching subsided as an alternative narrative appeared. The alternative gained more steam, if more complexity, as young Bob’s extracurricular activities came to the fore. Another missing piece was a complete college transcript, this by way of Bowling Green State University. What resulted from this search for historical answers achieved some coherence and unity, but truth is hard to come by. The same may be said of Ferrell’s courtship and military service stories. The topic of Ferrell’s path to Yale comes first.
Midwest to Yale
Ferrell’s rise to well-respected historian by way of Yale’s graduate school is a useful prelude to the puzzling narratives of his war service and matrimonial courtship. Each vignette highlights postmodernism’s tussle with the Hoosier historian’s singular, unified, truthful history approach.21 Considering Ferrell’s path to Yale, there is reason that he was reluctant to share his early life experiences with the present author since they encompass both highs and lows and personal vulnerability. He may have found it undesirable to share his lack of interest in history in the first several years as a student at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) beginning in the late 1930s.22 In an interview years later, the emeritus professor Ferrell noted that BGSU professors awarded him a grade of D and C in his initial world civilization courses. This was the first sign that Ferrell may not have been invited through the front door at Yale’s graduate history program. Another artifact, a World Civilization Exam bluebook marked C-, described another deficiency—not writing to the question.23 Several BGSU transcripts for the semesters from 1939 to 1940, aside from music, show Ferrell to be a good student overall, though hardly top notch.24
Bowling Green State University, itself, was a surprising launching point given Ferrell’s critique of it through the years. In two missives to BGSU presidents, the Indiana University historian said as much years after graduating. In a letter to President Ralph McDonald, the former alum pointed to the “inadequacy of [BGSU] undergraduate training,” “poor teaching,” and faculty who were “asleep intellectually.” BGSU, as with many other schools, had gained university status even though its faculty produced a “scarcity of scholarship since 1910.” The reality in Ferrell’s eyes: “the graduate school” was a “solemn farce.”25 The Indiana professor’s opinions stood unchanged a decade later, as President Sumner Canary received Ferrell’s critique on a wide array of issues including the lack of quality history faculty and the scholars needed to recruit PhD students and establish a program.26 Such shortcomings may explain why his favorite history professor at BGSU, Walter Sanderlin, left after the initial year, transferring to Jefferson and Washington University in Pennsylvania in the fall of 1946. Even if one discounts the inveterate critic’s remarks, a BS degree in Music Education with a minor in English and German would hardly have included the prerequisites for a middle class Midwesterner to hope for admission to a history program at an Ivy League school.27 Additional archival evidence, for instance, Ferrell’s remark to an acquaintance, Mark Gallagher, raised more questions than it answered: “I went back to Bowling Green for two years and change[d] courses from music education to history.”28 There was also an abbreviated vita attached to a letter Ferrell sent to Philip E. Mosley as part of an application to do research for the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In it, the future Yale graduate student noted that he earned a BA in Music with minors in history and political science.29
The puzzle of how the future historian came to Yale is muddled more by his inconsistent thoughts shared at the early and late stages of his military service. Staff Sergeant Ferrell’s interest in the discipline of history came partly during his travels overseas in Uncle Sam’s fight against totalitarianism.30 Repeatedly cycling out to the pyramids in Egypt, near the army base, certainly had a pronounced effect; long after, Ferrell continued to recall it as pivotal.31 History as a vocation began creeping into the horizon, if only mutedly, a year into the war and only partly because music held out such lousy prospects as a career.32 A letter responding to his dad’s query stimulated the following response:33 “[T]he prospect of going out and teaching public school music [psm] is not especially interesting to me. The more I think about it the less I like it. There are so many young girl [teachers] who can go out [and] teach psm much better than I can. It is essentially a job of singing, which is not for me.” Ferrell found the inherent limitations of schools to develop acceptable orchestra and band programs impractical. He lacked the skills to play professionally. The Army soldier shared that “I became dissatisfied with [music education] by degrees” and “the Army” had given him “plenty of time to think. This history business at present seems the best to me,” but it would fall short of “working for [ones]self.” Soldier Ferrell went on to judge the advantages and disadvantages of teaching regardless of discipline—“English, language or history.” Sociology and economics were also on his radar. Striving for a master’s or PhD degree was imperative to obtain a teaching job due to the glut of teachers and might work to his advantage at the college level, he believed. “Stability and safety” were the highest priorities, the result likely of living through the Great Depression, his dad’s loss of a banking job, and move away from friends and boyhood home.34
Another letter in response to Ferrell’s dad, Ernest Sr., came late in the war. Despite the early pronouncements, young Bob was ambivalent about his future or at least what he felt comfortable sharing with his parents.35 In letters back and forth, his dad repeatedly shared what he thought best for his son, and young Bob’s replies reflected this: “As you said Dad, it is important to get into something where there will be dough. That is one of the big assets of the medical business, besides the fact that you work for yourself. In the army, I’ve had some experience working for other people, and naturally one would get along best working for himself. . . . The trouble is, though, that I’m not sure yet just what I want to do.” Ferrell thought that taking a leisurely course load, perusing the BGSU catalogue, and sorting out his options were important. The only certainty was to avoid a career in music education.
A wonderful BGSU mentor and professor of history, Sanderlin, facilitated the progression toward history after the former Staff Sergeant Ferrell was released from service and found his