Welcome Remarks for The Shattering: America in the 1960s

Greetings from the National Archives’ flagship building in Washington, DC, which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples. I’m David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today’s conversation with Kevin Boyle and Suzanne E. Smith about Boyle’s new book, The Shattering.

Before we begin, I’d like to tell you about two programs coming up soon on our YouTube channel.

On Wednesday, January 26, at 1 p.m., David McKean will tell us about his new book, Watching Darkness Fall, which recounts the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the road to war from the perspective of four American ambassadors in key Western European capitals—London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Moscow.

And on Tuesday, February 1, at 1 p.m., we’ll hear from Sara Polak, who will discuss her book FDR in American Memory: Roosevelt and the Making of an Icon. She analyzes Roosevelt as a cultural icon in American memory, a historical leader who carefully and intentionally built his public image.

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Kevin Boyle begins his look at the 1960s with the story of Ed Cahill, who in 1961 organized his neighbors to deck their houses with American flags for the Fourth of July. Boyle was inspired by a photograph of Cahill and his neighbors that he had seen years before in a book published by the National Archives. The book, which reproduced more than 200 images from our photographic holdings, was called The American Image.

Boyle’s book about America in the 1960s—The Shattering—takes us a decade beyond the end year of The American Image and focuses on the period’s transformative conflicts. The New York Times calls The Shattering a “rich, layered account of the 1960s.”

History is not simply the unfolding of events but is the story of the individuals behind the events. In The Shattering, Boyle introduces us to the people who propelled the changes. The Washington Post’s review declares that “Boyle has a gift for synthesizing and translating the often dry arguments and analysis of formal scholarship . . . into artful and empathetic storytelling.”

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Kevin Boyle is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University. His previous book, Arc of Justice, won the National Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He’s also the author of The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism and co-author of Muddy Boots and Ragged Aprons. His essays and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press.

Suzanne E. Smith is a professor of American history at George Mason University and teaches African American History, 20th-century cultural history, history of death in America, American popular music, and African American religious history. She is the author of Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit.

Now let’s hear from Kevin Boyle and Suzanne Smith. Thank you for joining us today.