Resurrecting the red: Pete Seeger and the purification of difficult reputations *. From: Social Forces | Date: June 1, 2002| Author: Bromberg, Minna; Fine, Gary Alan | COPYRIGHT 2002 University of North Carolina Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Reputational change can occur both posthumously and within a person's lifetime. Championed by reputational entrepreneurs, reputations emerge from competitive fields of interpretive possibilities. The purification of Pete Seeger's image, from vilified Communist to national hero, lets us study both reputational change and the relationship between art and politics. An objectivist model suggests that reputations simply reflect truth. An ideological model claims that Seeger's redemption is shape...