Saralee Says
Fortunes, Fiddles and Fried Chicken: A Business History of Nashville was a tell-all book about the business community of Nashville. Bill Carey brought to life many of the people who were involved in Nashville's health-care, life insurance and political landscape.
At the time Fortunes was published (2000), it was a book everyone was talking about, first seeing if their name was in the book and then studying all of the pages to see what they could learn about the Nashville notables. If you did not buy a copy of Fortunes, Fiddles and Fried Chicken, that's too bad because the book is now out of print and almost impossible to find.
Don't make the same mistake with Carey's new book Chancellors, Commodores, & Coeds - A History of Vanderbilt University (Clearbrook Press). Buy your copy now because this is the next book all of Nashville will be talking about.
This book is an easy-to-read history of Vanderbilt, which is well researched and organized. Part One reviews the source of the Vanderbilt family fortune and its ties with the Methodist church. Part Two is about Bishop McTyeire while Parts Three and Four review the years of Chancellor Kirkland and Chancellor Branscomb. In Part Five - my favorite section - the good stuff is the years of civil rights, Stokley Carmichael and Perry Wallace. In Part Six Vanderbilt acquires Peabody, and Chancellor Wyatt retires.
I liked being able to pick and choose how I read this book. You can start right in the middle and then finish with Part One, and Carey has a great index. It is easy to find out who made the cut and whose name was left out - no easy feat when you are writing about Vanderbilt.
As a bibliophile, I wish there had been more than the few pages devoted to the Agrarians. However, Carey makes up for this in his frank discussion of integration of Vanderbilt and the lack of promotion of women. The truth about Vanderbilt, like many other places of higher learning, is not pretty, but there it is.
My questions for our book club are many. Why would anyone not affiliated with Vanderbilt want to read this book? I think this is a great story of Americana; after all, a college is made up of people, and the truth about people is always more interesting than any work of fiction. Is Vanderbilt University deserving of the title the "Harvard of the South" or is that just wishful thinking among some of the alumni? Are you as big a fan of Chancellor Gee and Vice Chancellor David Williams as I am?
Vanderbilt, like many exclusive institutions, will always be interesting and intriguing, which is why this is such a fascinating book.
Larry's Language
Vanderbilt University has consistently been ranked among the top 20 universities or colleges in the United States - that's in academics and not athletics. Why? How does a college become a major national institution? For Vanderbilt, the answer has been leadership by several outstanding chancellors, money, research faculty, and students.
Bill Carey's new book, Chancellors, Commodores and Coeds, illustrates in a breezy and episodic manner the growth of Vanderbilt University from a small Southern finishing school to a larger and diversified national center of learning. While the 1985 formal history, Gone with the Ivy by Paul Conkin, gives the academic, heavily footnoted version of Vanderbilt's development, Carey's new book reads more in the style of a lengthy issue of the Vanderbilt student newspaper, The Hustler.
This is a fun read that requires no heavy lifting since the author is direct and revealing about the people and motivations that both slowed and advanced Vanderbilt's fame, glory and failures. From its early days as an affiliated church school through its luck in attracting two generations of Vanderbilt family millions, this university has grown steadily in reputation. Of course, some of that reputation is not well respected today: forcing integration leader the Rev. Jim Lawson out of the Divinity School in the early 1960s; the student body voting not to integrate in 1962; the urban renewal land grab by the university of a beautiful older neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s.
But most of these college stories are inspiring and heartwarming because they focus on the everyday students who received academic, occupational and personal education. Some took courageous stands like John Sergent and Lionel Barrett; some were leaders then and now like Perry Wallace and Lamar Alexander; some were just having fun (author Carey does not identify the streakers, the panty raid organizers or the revealing student publication photographs).
You will learn about Steve Martin's first performance at Vanderbilt in the early 1970s and how he got carded coming back from the Krystal on West End. You can relive the excitement and tension of visits to Vanderbilt by two Kennedy brothers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokley Carmichael, Gloria Steinem, Allen Ginsberg, Sister Souljah and Barry Goldwater. Omitted are the more recent appearances by Anita Hill and Cornell West.
This book is rich with the experiences of Vanderbilt's leaders in the 1940s and 1950s, and for all those who have often remarked that Vanderbilt has never been a good neighbor in Nashville, the recent leadership of Chancellor Gordon Gee and Vice Chancellor David Williams proves that Vanderbilt can prosper both nationally and locally.
Join us for our next book club discussion, which will feature Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile.
