Modern Greek Studies Association

Steve Frangos: An Archive of Popular Writings in Greek American History and Music (1985-2016)

Introduction
History
Music

In 2017, a scholar in a major U.S. Modern Greek studies program made me an offer I could not resist: to share with me his extensive archive of the writings of Steve Frangos, one of the most prolific popular historians of Greek America. These works, the majority in the form of newspaper clippings that had appeared in various Greek American media outlets, provided a unique opportunity, I felt, to make publicly available, in one place, a significant corpus of public history. In addition to his published work in scholarly journals and encyclopedias, Steve Frangos has been writing regularly and frequently in the Greek American press. His research has been featured in the now defunct The Greek American (1986-2002) and The Greek Star (1968-2015), and it continues to appear primarily in the English-language edition of The National Herald, as well as in the Greek Orthodox Observer. This public circulation places Frangos in a unique position to shape Greek America’s historical memory, a position of power that renders this archive all the more important. For his work, Frangos draws from a wide variety of resources, but more significantly from his extensive research in various Greek American archives scattered across the country, as well as in municipal and national libraries and archives. He offers a wealth of information and insights on subjects often forgotten or marginalized by the community or excluded from official history. His work identifies emerging cultural phenomena such as grassroots activism to preserve community history and heritage, a phenomenon he calls “a new preservation movement”. Frangos’s writings open up venues for new research directions but also invite reflection on a larger historiographical question: How is Greek American history written for public consumption? What knowledge does the historian produce, and how does he interpret it?

Historians praise Frangos. Dan Georgakas, for instance, singles him out as “the single most prolific and knowledgeable person writing regularly about the history of the Greeks in America.” Indeed, his contributions have been immense. Frangos often adopts a critical posture, charging U.S. Modern Greek studies programs for neglecting the study of Greek America. There is no doubt that his work requires further discussion. As a step toward this direction I have invited Dan Georgakas to share his thoughts on Frangos's place in Greek American studies. I am also contributing an essay.

The archive is organized in two categories: Writings about (1) history and (2) music. The first folder, “Steve Frangos: An Archive of Popular Writings in Greek American History (1996-2016),” contains 116 articles, while the second, “Steve Frangos: An Archive of Popular Writings in Greek American Music (1985-2016),” contains 40 articles.¹ Included in this latter collection are several archival articles published in the magazine Resound. I have compiled a bibliography for each folder (History or Music), occasionally incorporating keywords, in brackets, in the titles, for the convenience of the archive’s researchers. As one would expect, there is some overlapping between the two categories, which makes my classification of some entries, such as those on early Greek American dancers, under history rather than music, somewhat arbitrary.

To the corpus I received by the donor, who prefers to remain anonymous, I have added my own collection mostly from Frangos’s pieces in The GreekAmerican, which I was keenly collecting, scissors in hand, in the 1990s, when I was a graduate student. To be sure, the archive is far from complete for the time span it covers. In the selected list of published newspaper and magazine articles (1991–2018) that appear in Frangos’s CV, included in this archive, I counted more than 575 articles on history and more than 75 in music. Important gaps in this archive, then, need to be filled. Additional work also remains to be done in relation to the available material, such as more expansive identification of keywords for each entry, as well as, possibly, annotation.

But this project is a valuable, necessary beginning. I consider it work in progress. I hope it will spark conversation among archivists, librarians, and scholars regarding the systematic digitization of archival material by institutions collecting Greek American material.

“Steve Frangos: An Archive of Popular Writings in Greek American History and Music” is a collective achievement, and bringing it to fruition has been time and labor intensive. I thank the donor for generously entrusting me with the material. I express my appreciation to Antonis Diamataris, the editor of The National Herald, who recognized the value of the project and granted the Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA) permission to post it here. Elaine Thomopoulos was instrumental in our effort to contact both the publisher as well as Steve Frangos, to secure his permission. We are very grateful for their cooperation and generosity. In addition, Tina Bucuvalas shared with me Steve Frangos’s CV, archival photographs, and his unpublished manuscript on singer Yiorgos Katsaros. I thank the department of Classics at The Ohio State University for offering supporting resources. Many thanks go to Khalid Jama for his administrative assistance and Kenny Lok for the digitizing. My appreciation goes to Roland Moore for technical support. I created the bibliographies. I am delighted to have this project posted on the MGSA website, a hospitable hub for Greek American and Greek diaspora material.

Yiorgos Anagnostou
Modern Greek Program
Department of Classics
The Ohio State University

March 2018

Notes

1. I have also included an unpublished manuscript entitled, “Yiorgos Katsaros: Last of the Greek-Americans Cafè-Aman Singers (c. 1992, Indiana University, Bloomington), a version of which has been published as “The Last Cafe-Aman Performer” in the Journal of Modern Hellenism (12-13, 1995-1996).

Frangos Curriculum Vitae up to 2014

A B C D F G H I L M N O P R S T

"Advice on Getting Published." The National Herald, June 23, 2007, pp. 1, 5.

"All Things Greek: The Story of an Important Sculpture." The National Herald, November 30-December 1, 2002, p. 11.

"All Things Greek." The National Herald [no additional bibliographical information]

[Editor's note: This is a version closely following the one above entitled, "All Things Greek: The Story of an Important Sculpture."

"American Katharevousa: Just a Legend." The National Herald, May 14, 2005, pp. 1, 7.

"American Monuments of Greeks." The National Herald, October 22, 2011, pp. 1, 3.

[Editor's note: A stain on page 3, second column on top, makes difficult to read a particular passage in print. In the original it reads, "came to the New World in 1768 as settlers of the historic New Smyrna Colony of Florida by Americans proud of their Hellenic Heritage who cherish their participation in the great ideals of democracy and freedom as embodied in our American way of life…"]

"Bloody Thursday and the Great West Coast Maritime Strike of 1934." The National Herald [no additional bibliographical information].

"Book Tells Story about Greeks in Washington State." The National Herald, January 4, 2006, pp. 1, 5.

"Captain Costentenus: The Tattooed Greek of New York City." The National Herald, June 3, 2006, p. 7.

"Cemeteries of St John Church in Pueblo, Colorado." The National Herald [no additional bibliographical information].

"Continuing Faith and Fervor of Utah's Greek Community." The National Herald, January 13, 2007, p. 6.

"Counterfeiters Gave Greeks A Bad Name." The National Herald, December 16, 2006, pp. 1, 5.

"Dancers of the Early 20th Century." Part 1. The National Herald, January 19, 2008, pp. 1, 7.

Editor's note: For Part 3 see below under "Greek Dancers and Dance Teams [from] the 1920s through the 1960s: The Condos Brothers." Part 3. The National Herald, 2008.

"The Dimitry Family of Fabled New Orleans." The National Herald, September 24, 2005, pp. 1, 4.

"Dispelling our Notions about Who Is Greek and Who Isn't." The National Herald [no additional bibliographical information].

"Early Anti-Greek Attacks In New York." The National Herald, February 3, 2007, pp. 1, 4.

"Early Greek Dancers Make A Splash in North America." The National Herald, August 5, 2006, pp. 1, 5.

"Early Greek Dancers Worked Hollywood." The National Herald, pp. 1, 6 [no additional bibliographical information].

"Eulogy for the Diana Sweet Shoppe." The National Herald March 1-2, 2003, pp. 1, 6–7.

"Exhibiting the Greek American Experience, Community Keeps its History Alive." The National Herald, November 25, 2006.

"The Filmography and Hollywood Careers of the Condos Brothers Dancers." (Part 4). The National Herald [no additional bibliographical information].

"The First Greeks in US Politics." The National Herald, pp. 1, 7 [no additional bibliographical information]

"The First Wave of Greek Vaudevillians." (Part 1). The National Herald, September 6, 2008.

"Food for Thought: The Greek Cook Book in North America." The National Herald, November 19, 2005, pp. 1, 6.

"George Heraklides: Model Titan." The National Herald, December 30, 2006, pp. 1, 8.

"God's Other Children." The GreekAmerican, May 11, 1996, pp. 14, 18. "Greek Aires." The GreekAmerican, January 3, 1998, p. 14.

"The Grecian Gladiators: One of Vaudeville's Greatest Acts." The National Herald, March 19, 2005, pp. 1, 5.

"The Greek Actors During Hollywood's Silent Era." Part 1. The National Herald, July 14, 2012, pp. 1, 5.

Editor's Note: This is a two-part essay; the file labeled with the above title also contains the second part: "Greek Actors of the Silent Film Era." Part 2. The National Herald, July 21 [?], 2012, pp. 1, 7.

"Greek Aires and The 1821 War Relief." The GreekAmerican, April 27, 1996, p. 12.

"Greek-American Boxers: An Oft-Ignored Segment of U.S. Hellenic History." The National Herald, June 29-July 5, 2013, p. 7.

"Greek American Commandos of World War II: Behind-Enemy-Lines in Greece." The National Herald, October 31-November 6, 2009, p. 9.

"Greek-American History: Hardly Antiquarian, Reestablishment Underway." The National Herald, July 26-August 2, 2014, p. 5.

"The Greek-American Kafeneion." The National Herald, September 13-19, 2014, pp. 1, 7.

"The Greek Battalion: Unraveling the Story of a Special Group of Greek Americans." The National Herald [no additional bibliographical information].

"The Greek Diaspora and Early American Cinema." The National Herald, pp. 1, 7 [no additional bibliographical information]

"Greek Dancers and Dance Teams [from] the 1920s through the 1960s: The Condos Brothers." Part 3. The National Herald, 2008 [no additional bibliographical information].

"Greek Gandy Dancers Help America Open Its Railroads." The National Herald, April 21, 2007, p. 5.

"Greek Gandy Dancers Were Often Attacked." The National Herald, April 28, 2007, pp. 1, 7.

"Greek Gandy Dancers Met With Hostility." The National Herald, May 5, 2007, pp. 1,5.

"Greek Labor In 19th-20th Century U.S." Part 1. The National Herald, June 23-29, 2012, pp. 1, 7.