Spock, Oprah; Oprah, Spock: Celebrity Culture in the 20th Century

06/27/23 • 29 min

We explore Spock in the spotlight. Did he have an irresistible, outsized personality? Or was he attention-seeking and fame-hungry?
Public domain archival audio courtesy of the Iowa State University Archives.
References

Bloom, Lynn. Doctor Spock: Biography of a Conservative Radical. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.: 1972.
Levey, Jane. “‘Spock, I Love Him.’” Colby Quarterly, v. 36, n. 4, December 2000, pp. 273-294.
Maier, Thomas. Dr. Spock: An American Life. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998.
“Malcolm Gladwell on Dr. Spock.” Significant Others: A History Podcast. 7 Sept. 2022.
Massie, Robert K. “‘Not the Dr. Spock!’” Saturday Evening Post, vol. 239, no. 10, May 1966, pp. 80–86.
Needleman, Robert and Benjamin Spock. Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, 10th edition. Gallery Books, 2018.
Spock, Benjamin. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1957.
---. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946.
Spock, Benjamin, M.D. and Mary Morgan. Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century. Pantheon Books, 1985.
Viorst, Judith. Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have To Give Up In Order To Grow. The Free Press, 2002.
“WOI-TV News Clips, 1921-2013, RS 5/6/9.” Iowa State University Library Special Collections and University Archives. Accessed 17 Apr. 2023.

Keywords
celebrities, celebrity culture, branding, marketing, influencer, influencers, tabloids, reality television, reality TV, celebrity doctor, pediatrician, oprah, oprah winfrey, dr. phil, dr. oz, wellness, woo-woo, fame, famous, publicity, public figure, household name, child rearing, spock babies, post-war, superpower, middleclass, child psychology, public perception, social media, father figure, spirituality, ballroom dance, ballroom dancing, stay-at-home parents, stay-at-home dad, ice dancing, revisionist history, malcolm gladwell, tv interview, reinvention, macrobiotics, goop, miso broth, diet, baby food, scraped meat

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Copyright 2023 Deborah Copperud + Katie Curler

06/27/23 • 29 min

Spock Talk: A Parenting Advice Podcast - Spock, Oprah; Oprah, Spock: Celebrity Culture in the 20th Century

Transcript

Intro

Welcome to Spock Talk! The podcast that explores:

What’s the deal with Dr. Benjamin Spock?
How did Baby and Child Care become the preeminent parenting guide of the 20th century?
Who gets to tell parents how to parent?

I’m Deborah

And I’m Katie

We’re talking Spock because we want to understand what it is about Dr. Spock’s work that endures. Why is the Spock brand around, twenty-five years after

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