For the Family

Some of you reading this know the depressing realities of the current academic job market either because you have wrestled with it or know someone who has. Though I would still very much prefer to land a tenure-track position in a small liberal arts college (or SLAC in academic-ese) in the Midwest or South and focus on teaching while still working through my research projects, this prospect dims somewhat when I consider a number of factors: the proportion of jobs to job-seekers (I don't have the statistics in front of me, but they are not good); my stubbornness/persistence/refusal to move for an adjunct or temporary position; and the daunting pace of the publish or perish imperative necessary to obtain tenure. I understand that some may argue that beggars cannot and should not be choosers, but between LZog's pending arrival and a lifelong commitment to doing things my way, I feel little compulsion to sacrifice my soul to the academic gods.

That said, I neither regret the years I have spent pursuing the PhD nor believe that I cannot identify alternative avenues for the skills and talents I have cultivated over the past seven years. I refuse to assume a vitriolic position towards my lack of a tenure-track job immediately following graduation (or ever) and the vagaries of the job market.

Over the past year I have begun to tell people that if the professorial world rejects me, I will turn to writing historical fiction. Funny, every time I say it, the idea sounds better and better - and sometimes even more feasible. Though certainly no more stable or easier to manage than a career in academia, I may research whatever I want and publish on my own timeline. And I could make stuff up, which has appreciable appeal after some of the drudgery that I executed in the name of the dissertation. I aim to, though, err heavy on the historical and light on the fiction. Using family - facts and figures, legends and lore - offers me a fruitful foundation for future research.

Really I have several prospective projects, but over the past week I have focused on the Zogs and their entrepreneurial origins in St. Louis. By taking advantage of my waning weeks as a student, I accessed the most circulated paper in the area between 1911 and 1922, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,  from the university library. Covering the years from the establishment of this Zog venture through the last year available in this database, I dug up some gems that lend some sparkle to Zog history.

Advertisements for their business, the Star Dyeing and Cleaning Company (spelling in context), comprised the bulk of what I found, but even these suggest a cheekiness true to both the time period and all the Zogs I know today. In 1919, they ran contests for the "Star Sayings" that accompanied many of the ads and informed potential customers of their "up to the minute equipment, long experience and extreme carefulness" that made "STAR SERVICE so successful - so satisfying" (May 27, 1919).

St. Louisans learned a little of the family roots from an ad that appeared in the July 29, 1918 edition. It declared that Star possessed "the best dyer that ever came out of Holland, but has been too modest to say so." I confess that I did not realize that Holland prided itself on its clothes dying traditions.

Modesty may/not have missed the mark as a genetic trend, but pronounced - and sometimes misguided - patriotism clearly began early, likely at least in part a reaction to American involvement in World War I. In 1916, an article titled "Warrants Charge Two With Using U.S. Flag in 'Ads'" explains that one FZog (KZog's great or great-great grandfather - we cannot confirm which) refused a request to remove a flag shield emblem emblazoned with the company name from their wagons. Another similar article followed the next day, though we have no indication of whether or not the authorities convicted FZog of the violation, which carried a fine of $100 or 30 days in jail for each offense (August 5 & 6, 1916). Advertisements later in the war focused on cleanliness as a patriotic duty.

My favorite find, however, remains the long-time slogan: "Our Proposition Is a Clean One".

To what ends will this work come? Who knows?. All the same, it gives me a productive project for the family in the meantime . . .

XO,
JZog
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