I love it when my research allows me to indulge some personal curiosity I have about something. This was the case on my trip to Northampton, where I peeked in at the Helen Gurley Brown papers. Primarily, I sought information on Brown's sister Mary, a polio survivor, but also enjoyed peeking at the papers I had so longed to look at three years before, when I was finishing up my master's thesis on Brown's revitalized version of Cosmopolitan.
Visiting the Randolph Bourne papers at Columbia provided a different sort of satisfaction: getting a closer look at a character from the first Reacting to the Past game I ever encountered, Greenwich Village, 1913 (habitually shortened to GV). I looked at Bourne's papers in the hopes of finding some personal reflections on or similar to his work in "The Handicapped-- By One of Them" to use in my dissertation research about children with disabilities in the early twentieth century. However, in addition to learning a bit more about this piece and its reception (which I'll discuss more in a future post), I also found resources from Bourne's college days which shed light on some of the conflicts within the Greenwich Village game and the historical moment with which it engages.
In GV, two factions, suffrage and labor, vie for the affections of the bohemians living in the neighborhood. The bohemians can be an unruly bunch-- loftily principled, if you think kindly on them; unrealistically flighty, if you're less charitable. One of the most focused bohemian roles is Randolph Bourne. The game describes him primarily as a young intellectual with firm beliefs in the vital power of youth to bring about social and political change. His piece "Youth" informs his speeches and writings within the game and those of other characters who wish to emphasize the value of vitality, novelty, and energy. Those who play him often pick up his voice fairly well in this respect, continually advocating for youthful energy and voices to play strong roles in the plans of the suffrage and labor factions.
One of the great additions I came across in Bourne's papers for future GV sessions was a series of replies to an editorial Bourne wrote for Columbia's Spectator while a student at the university. In the editorial, Bourne criticized university administrators for their exploitation of the women and children who labored at cleaning, book-delivery, and other "drudgery and primitive methods" he thought inappropriate for a university setting. Though I have not been able to find the full text of his editorial, it is referenced in this New York Times blurb from Feburary 26, 1913:
Bourne's piece itself is a fantastic argument for his alliance with labor, as it showcases his interest in equitable working conditions and willingness to challenge systems of institutional authority. It could also be used to persuade him toward suffrage, as he seems particularly appalled by the degradation of women and children promoted by the university's practices and claims he and other students "blush with shame when they pass a poor, gaunt scrubwoman on her knees…or have a book delivered to them by an undersized, starving child."
The replies offer the opportunity to bring the discussion to another level. Most of them are strongly negative, taking Bourne to task for his exaggeration of the laborer's working conditions and his distrust of the university administration to know what is best. The writers of these replies found Bourne's ideology extreme and distasteful. Much of the Greenwich Village game is tightly wrapped in the insular community of Greenwich Village. In the Village, social cachet comes with doing something--anything-- that is daring, new, intellectual, fun-loving, or expressive. Radical ideas are the order of the day and for the most part all are trying to out-radical one another. There are some insertions of more conservative perspectives in the course of the game, particularly in opposition to woman suffrage which comes from outside the Village. These letters offer an intriguing look at everyday "college men's" opposition to ideas about labor rights in a context which affects him daily.
Although people given the role of Bourne in GV are informed of Bourne's disability, it rarely comes up in game sessions or papers. I'm still struggling to come up with ways to promote discussion of this attribute of Bourne's life within the Greenwich Village game. I'll discuss Bourne's contributions to disability history, theory, and identity in another post.
Related Links:
Bourne is frequently lauded for his commentary on World War I, including his famous assertion that "War is the Health of the State."
The memory of Bourne's opposition to war has inspired continuing antiwar organizations, including the Randolph Bourne Institute.
John Dos Passos' piece about Bourne, written about a decade after his death, is often quoted (including in disability activist magazine The Ragged Edge's version of "The Handicapped" linked above).
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