John White Popular Culture

Popular culture has been mishandled by historians. It was ignored from most centuries, yet today the study of popular culture is seen as essential for well-rounded study. By tracing how certain key historians presented popular culture, and how those men got to be in positions were their thoughts were considered consequential, how the study of popular culture changed over time becomes obvious. Assuming that the individuals chosen are representative of their time, examining John White, William Herder, Karl Marx, and Carlo Ginsburg can show the full spectrum of approaches the study of popular history can be traced. While at first popular culture was considered inferior and inconsequential, it has evolved into a respected part of history. This
John White was not a historian, nor was he sociologist. Yet White was commissioned by the British government to make illustrations and to study the Algonkian people, and his findings were distributed with zeal in England. White would later go on to be the governor of Roanoke. White’s appointment shows a lack of respect for the Algonkian people. Sending an artist with no qualifications to thoroughly and effectively study the Algonkian people meant that qualitied people were not common and well know at the time, or that British government simply did not care about the Algonquian people as a people, and only as a means, they did not bother to find a qualified individual. Likely it was the latter, however the former was also probably true. At this point in history, the study of other cultures in Britain did not frequently exist outside of racist rants and political ambition. Since White was an employee of the Crown as well as a loyal Englishman, he viewed the Algonquian people through the lens of the English government, a lens filled with dreams of conquest and superiority. This lens corrupted secondary sources until “popular culture” become synonymous with inferiority. Because English society allowed unqualified but well connected men to be judge and jury on cultures they did not even attempt to understand,
His ideas and experience are completely different than his predecessors. Marx strongly believed that history was just class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeois, even that history would end when the proletariat rises up and takes control of the means of production. Marx identified with the proletariat and their popular culture, leading to the first sympathetic view point of popular culture. However, there is strange paradox, because while Marx believes he is championing the proletariat, he also erases culture as he simplifies it to just one intersection. Everything that might have been thought of as culture, from folk stories to food, is eradicated. The individuals from history that Marx claims to be championing might very well take offense to this dismissal. Nevertheless, Karl Marx represents a leap forward in the study of popular culture. Marx’s ideas were revolutionary, and how widespread they became illustrates how perception of popular culture and commoners were shifted. Marx distributed pamphlets, such as the Communist Manifesto, aimed not at the intellectual elite, but at common people. In truth, his true goal was to spread Marxism, and not to change how people study popular culture. Regardless, by addressing his ideas to the public directly, he is saying that he respects the public’s ability to understand his message. Marx’s innate respect for his contempories extends to those same