Memory : fragments of a modern history

331 Pages·2012·1.884 MB·English

by  Winter, Alison

Memory

Memor y
FRAGMENTS OF A MODERN HISTORY
Alison Winter
Th e University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Alison Winter
is associate professor of history at the
University of Chicago.
Th e University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
Th e University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2012 by Th e University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2012.
Printed in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-90258-6 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-90258-7 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winter, Alison, 1965–
Memory: fragments of a modern history / Alison Winter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-90258-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-90258-7 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Memory.
2. Recollection (Psychology). 3. Memory—Research—
History. 4. Recollection (Psychology)—Research—History.
5. Psychology, Experimental—History. 6. Truth. I. Title.
bf371.w545 2011
153.1′20904—dc23 2011017777
Th is paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
To my mother, Judy Swartz—I remember everything . . .

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 On the Witness Stand 9
2 Th e Making of Truth Serum 33
3 Memories of War 53
4 Wilder Penfi eld and the Recording of Personal Experience 75
5 Th e Th ree Lives of Bridey Murphy 103
6 Securing Memory in the Cold War 125
7 Flashbulb Memories 157
8 Th e Law of Memory 179
9 Frederic Bartlett and the Social Psychology of Remembering 197
10 Making False Memory 225
11 Reliving and Revising the Past 257
Notes 273
Index 311

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I received a great deal of help in the course of writing this book, only a frac-
tion of which I can acknowledge here. I would like to thank the following
archives and libraries: the Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine,
the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Library of
Medicine, the Osler Library, McGill University Archives, Cambridge Uni-
versity Library, George Eastman House, Pueblo Historical Society and Ar-
chive, Harvard University Archives, the Boston Public Library, and the John
Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at Oxford University.
I thank the following individuals for oral history interviews or information
sent by e-mail, and in many cases for also providing me with bibliographi-
cal information and even original sources to help with my work: Ellen Bass,
J. Kingston Cowart, Lynn Crook, Richard Epstein, William Feindel, John D.
MacDonald, Brenda Milner, Alan Schefl in, John Smith, Bill Corcoran, Jen-
nifer Freyd, Pamela Freyd, Peter Freyd, Deborah Glasser, Dick Grinker, John
Kihlstrom, Jonah Klehs, Liz Lunbeck, Elizabeth Loftus, Emily Orne, Mar-
tin Reiser, Melissa Salten, David Spiegel, and Charles Tart. Many colleagues
in history, science studies, and law gave me valuable advice and generous help
of various kinds, including Albert Alschuler, Diana Barkan, David Bloor,
Emily Buss, Lorraine Daston, John Forrester, Jan Goldstein, Tom Gunning,
Bernard Harcourt, Dan Kevles, Ruth Leys, Eileen Groth Lyon, Andreas
Mayer, Robert Richards, Simon Schaff er, Anne Secord, Rani Singh, Geof-
frey Stone, and Alan Young. I have been very fortunate to have had several
excellent research assistants who have greatly strengthened the research for
ix