Oral History and Seabiscuit

JDWiseman · #1 (**permalink**) 08-09-2009, 02:01 PM

I was reading Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend for the second time this week over my vacation, and I came across an interesting note in the Acknowledgments at the end (where she talks about her sources).

I am aware that there are scholarly studies on the reliability of oral tradition, and that I'm not sharing anything groundbreaking here. That being said, perhaps this can serve as a small note of edification; I immediately tied this in to the Gospels after reading it:

Quote:

The luxury of researching those who achieve the extraordinary is that their lives play out before many observers. I spoke with people who saw Red Pollard hitch his toboggan to his pony, tumble down under Fair Knightess, spout Shakespeare and throw fists in the jocks' room, draw his last breaths in a nursing home built on the ruins of a track on which he once rode. I followed Woolf through the memories of friends, from a grade school classmate to a man who saw him die and sat vigil over his body on the day of his funeral. I found a groom who handled Seabiscuit for Fitzsimmons, the boys who galloped him for Smith, and several dozen witnesses to his races. I was even contacted by a nearly hundred-year-old former groom living in a telephoneless trailer in the desert, who is evidently the last person on earth who recalls the Lone Plainsman telling of his youth on the mustang ranges. The Detroit cemetery worker; the wife speaking for a husband muted by a stroke; the ancient trainer living through his last summer tethered to an oxygen tank; the clerk at a mail-order seafood company; the operator of the Seabiscuit liquor store in Hercules, California: each had something to contribute. Again and again, when I was able to check their testimony against records kept at the time, the accuracy of their statements was verified: the color of War Admiral's blanket, the precise time of Seabiscuit's half-mile split; a quip Red made seventy years ago. Ultimately, I gathered an almost uninterrupted memory record of the story I wished to tell from those who recall the sound, the smell, the feel of it, and who divulged secrets, such as Red's blind eye, that finally solved mysteries more than half a century old.

Ms. Hillenbrand conducted the research for this book, I believe, from 1996 to 2001 (I'm assuming; she states that she first conceived of writing a book on the life of Seabiscuit in 1996, and the book was finally published in 2001). She states that her living sources gave her a wealth of information about the jockey-culture of the 30's (in general), and about the lives of Howard, Smith, Pollard, and Woolf in particular (specifically during the racing career of Seabiscuit under their care, from 1936 - 1940). This would leave a roughly 60 year gap between the events and the recording of the memories and oral tradition surrounding those events. As I understand it, most mainline scholarship of today would concede that the Synoptic Gospels were written within 60 years of the ministry of Christ, and even a conservative (and highly defensible) dating of the Gospel of John circa A.D. 90 would place it in the "60 year range" as well.

Anyhow: As I said, this is just a small note of edification, nothing groundbreaking. This book was lauded for its careful research, attention to detail, and historical accuracy (and it also garnered numerous awards and honors), and the author sings high praises for the reliability of oral tradition and the memories of those surrounding Seabiscuit.

On a more personal note, this is one of my "life books", a book that I will read and re-read (reread?) as long as God allows. It is also the only book that has ever made me cry.

Anyhow: Cheers!

a mere housewife · #2 (**permalink**) 08-09-2009, 04:56 PM

Quote:

On a more personal note, this is one of my "life books", a book that I will read and re-read (reread?) as long as God allows.

I guess I'll have to read Seabiscuit.