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You Can Study That?

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“That sounds like fun!”

That’s often the response I get when I tell people I study the history of American popular culture. I agree! That said, I’ve found that this reply often assumes this research is completely distinct from other subjects of historical study. This is understandable. We often turn to popular culture, by which I mean mass-produced art like music, books, films, and television shows, for enjoyment and escapism.1 Because of this, it’s easy to forget that the history of popular culture—just like any other history—is based on the collection and interpretation of primary sources. This research also requires sources not referenced in other fields.

Let’s take a moment to think through the types of primary sources historians often use. For instance, how might a historian research the life of a single person? Diaries might tell us about their inner thoughts, everything from their hopes and dreams to their motivations and anxieties. Their correspondence could teach us about their relationships with their friends, colleagues, and family members. Newspapers and magazines can help us contextualize them, giving us a sense of the events and daily happenings that defined their life. If they were involved in an organization, whether a local business, an advocacy group, or the U.S. government, institutional records might provide us with clues about how this individual worked and lived.

I research and write about the history of punk rock in New York City through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.2 Punk was—and is—an underground culture that championed rebellion, dissent, and a raw, stripped-down style of rock music.3 For some of my coverage, my research is like any other historical project, reliant upon extensive archival collections. Case in point: Richard Hell (born Richard Lester Meyers), the main character of one of my dissertation chapters. Hell, a prominent artist in the 1970s New York punk scene, donated his personal papers to New York University in 2003 and 2024.4 While Hell is less well-known than, say, the Ramones, he was a crucial influence on the development of punk culture.5 The Sex Pistols, one of the most important punk bands of all time, copied his fashion, styling their hair into short spikes and patching their clothes together with safety pins.6 Asked by their manager Malcolm McLaren to innovate upon Hell’s song “Blank Generation,” they came up with “Pretty Vacant.”7

Poring over a select few of the 145 containers that make up the Richard Hell Papers, I search for punk’s origins. Part of this challenge is that “punk” was not really a describable concept until Punk magazine popularized the term in the mid- to late-1970s.8 As such, I can’t assume that Richard Hell is a direct embodiment or reflection of this culture. Rather, I need to figure out exactly how he contributed to its evolution.9 I spend four full days of archival appointments deciphering a near-illegible journal gifted to him by Patti Smith, which I transcribe in the reading room because I’m not allowed to take photos of it.10 I note that Hell struggles with addictions to cocaine and heroin, writing many of his entries for hours on end in drug-fueled frenzies. He reflects on the fact that “Richard Hell” is an artificial persona, writing on November 19, 1976: “I think I’m relatively free of prejudices and inhibitions as a song writer—of course Hell is a ‘created’ ‘identity’ too but it doesn’t enable me to act with freedom on stage.”11 Letters to Hell reveal how his fans responded to his art, finding affirmation in its instrumental and vocal rawness, now basic characteristics of punk rock. They can be zealous, creepy even—I find one written in blood.12 I listen to his songs as I flip through clippings of his prose, trying to figure out how he used music and performance to express his sense of self.

Of course, what research historians can do is determined by the kinds of primary sources available to them.13 You can’t write a substantial history of anything if the sources aren’t available. Perhaps people might not deem them important enough to be preserved, which is a serious consideration when archives are already lacking in resources.14 If sources are recent, they might still be in the process of being archived or could be sitting in someone’s closet. I’m sure you, dear reader, probably don’t keep organized records of everything you do. Even if you have, you’ve likely never considered donating them to an archive. And a historian can’t collect or analyze sources that simply don’t exist.

These are pertinent challenges for other subjects of my dissertation which are not nearly as comprehensively archived as the Richard Hell Papers. As punk received little mainstream media coverage by journalists who understood its nuances, the most comprehensive print record of its past is not made up of newspapers or magazines, but zines: self-produced publications typically produced in runs fewer than 1,000 copies. This is an immensely rich source base, but one I must actively seek out. Without their artist interviews, editorials, and stray ramblings, it’s impossible to properly write this history. I attend Bowling Green State University’s Summer Research Institute to pull zines from its music library, squint at scans from the Ian MacKaye collection of digital fanzines, and visit the community archive of ABC No Rio’s Zine Library, where I now also volunteer. Even together, these collections are incomplete. I will soon start conducting oral history interviews to understand punk culture from a variety of diverging, often conflicting perspectives.15

As always, I’ll need to cross-reference my sources to get the facts straight.

As laborious and difficult as this work is, I can’t deny that it is a lot of fun. After all, what could be more satisfying than immersing yourself in the history of something you love? Reckoning with the perils and possibilities of popular culture makes me appreciate my favorite punk rock songs all the more. The music feels heavier when it takes on the weight of history.

  1. My definition of popular culture here is narrow, especially as the term “popular culture” is a highly contested one. For instance, Ray B. Browne, a folklorist and literary scholar who pioneered the scholarly study of popular culture, defined the term as “the way of life we inherit from the generations before us, use ourselves, and pass on to our followers. […] Popular culture is the culture of the people, of all the people, as distinguished from a select small, elite group.” Ray B. Browne, “Popular Culture: New Notes Toward a Definition,” in Ray Browne on the Culture Studies Revolution: An Anthology of His Key Writings, ed. Ben Urish (McFarland & Company, 2011), 21–26.
  2. Grant Wong, “Why America Still Needs Punk Rock,” Current Affairs, August 19, 2025, accessed October 6, 2025; Charles Moss, “Fifty Years Ago, New York City’s Punk Scene Was Born,” Spin, July 8, 2024, accessed October 6, 2025; Kelefa Sanneh, “United Blood,” The New Yorker, March 9, 2015, accessed October 6, 2025; Ali Smith, “Ali Smith’s 90s New York punk scene – photo essay,” The Guardian, February 5, 2024, accessed October 6, 2025.
  3. Hank Shteamer, “Hardcore Punk Is Looking (And Sounding) Different Now,” The New York Times, June 6, 2023, accessed October 6, 2025.
  4. Kevin Mattson, “Punk’d by Memory,” Dissent, June 24, 2013, accessed October 6, 2025; John Leland, “Punk for Posterity,” The New York Times, January 1, 2004, accessed October 6, 2025.
  5. Eric Davidson, “They Wanted Everything: A chat with Punk Magazine’s John Holmstrom about Road to Ruin by The Ramones,” Rock and Roll Globe, October 16, 2019, accessed October 6, 2025.
  6. Jon Savage, “Young punks: unseen photos of The Sex Pistols,” The Guardian, April 6, 2019; Kembrew McLeod, “Malcolm McLaren Poaches Richard Hell’s Look,” The Downtown Pop Underground, accessed October 6, 2025, https://dsps.lib.uiowa.edu/downtownpopunderground/story/malcolm-mclaren-poaches-richard-hells-look/.
  7. Sean O’Hagen, “The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren by Paul Gorman review – punk’s king of chaos,” The Guardian, April 6, 2020,  accessed October 6, 2025.
  8. Aaron Cometbus, “A Visit with the Editor of Punk or, How a Fanzine Changed the World,” Maximum Rocknroll, October 17, 2009, accessed October 6, 2025.
  9. Ryan Donovan Purcell, “Richard Hell’s Journals, 1969-1979,” Hyperallergic, October 22, 2016, accessed October 6, 2025.
  10. Alison Beard, “Life’s Work: An Interview with Patti Smith,” Harvard Business Review, March-April 2023, accessed October 6, 2025.
  11. Journal from Patti Smith, 1974–1979; The Richard Hell Papers; MSS 144; box 1; folder 3; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.
  12. Mary to Richard Hell, April 18, 1978; The Richard Hell Papers; MSS 144; box 8; folder 566; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.
  13. Marc Reyes, “Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?” Contingent Magazine, March 25, 2019, accessed October 6, 2025.
  14. Sarah Calise, “Why Do Archivists Get Rid Of Things (And Enjoy It)?” Contingent Magazine, November 11, 2022, accessed October 6, 2025.
  15. Joseph M. Turrini, “‘Well I Don’t Care About History’: Oral History and the Making of Collective Memory in Punk Rock,” Notes 70, no. 1 (2013): 59–77.
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Grant Wong is a History Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Carolina, where he studies twentieth-century United States popular culture. Grant's research examines the history of New York City's punk rock scene from the 1970s to the 1990s. His writing can be found in Smithsonian, Slate, Current Affairs, and PopMatters, among other publications.

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