Week #14/Comments

You can find my comments on Ray's Blog:
http://cahercalla2.blogspot.com/
and Carrie's:
http://carriehoover.blogspot.com/

Week #14/Blog #14

I found myself treating this week's book more like a survey rather than an academic study. If I want to approach a book like Devil's Bargains as an acedemic thesis, the thesis has to be outside of our normal frame of understanding, and then has to be successfully supported. But Hal Rothman's thesis isn't exactly controversial, or unexpected, or outside of the general understanding of things. "The inherent problem of communities that succeed in attracting so many people is that their very presence destroys the cultural and environmental amenities that made the place special. This is the core of the complicated devil's bargain." (27) Tourism changes a place? Locals end up with the short end of the stick when tourism comes to town? Maybe it is because I've worked in the tourism industry for 15+ years, but this is hardly news. Rothman comes dangerously close to winning another of my "duh" awards.

So since I didn't think there was a particularly strong thesis here, I took the book to be more of a collection of stories about how the changes brought about by tourism actually take place. But as I went along I started to suffer from fatigue. Earlier chapters about the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, dude ranches, and national parks were much more interesting than the later chapters on ski resorts and Las Vegas. It was the mental equivalent of repetitive stress disorder...I felt like I was repeating the same basic steps over and over (and over and over) again. Rothman points out that the outside influencer changed over time--from railroads to wealthy neonatives to government agencies to corporations--but it was the same basic story told too often.

But I also found myself scratching my head about the focus on the West. Was this a book about the effects of tourism that happened to be about the West? No...Rothman feels like the West is different: "This virtue and incredible burden makes tourism in the West more tantalizing, more fraught with tension and anxiety, and more full of text, subtext, and depth than anywhere else in the nation." (15) But here I really got off the train. The kind of devil's bargains he describes occur everywhere...Branson, The Outer Banks, Mackinac Island, Key West, little touristy hamlets like Helen, Georgia. So while Rothman might give us a useful framework for examining the influence of tourism on a place, he does himself a disservice by imagining that it is only applicable west of the Rocky Mountains.

Others have commented on the writing style, and I think this is a classic example of something we brought up in class a few weeks back--over-reliance on deeply theoretical language and inflated vocabulary (what one friend of mine used to call "ten cent words") often betrays an insecurity about the author's argument. Since I don't think his argument is a particularly difficult one to support, I'm not surprised to see this kind of writing throughout.

Finally, I found myself simultaneously sympathetic to and put off by some of Rothman's sweeping pronouncements. As a historian interested in tourism he does have to imagine tourists as a homogenous group, the same way we often talk about women, African-Americans, or labor as if they are all the same. But the generalizations seemed more problematic here than with other groups. Personally, I find my clients (tourists all) have very different expectations, motives, assumptions and pre-conceived notions, even though they might all be signed up for the same tour. Like Rothman, I can make general statements about my tourist clients as a collective, but I recognize that those generalizations break down very quickly when you actually talk to the individuals. Historians don't have the luxury of talking to fin-de-siecle (sorry, had to slip it in somewhere) rail travelers. But I can't help but think that if my clients are so diverse today, what makes us think they were so homogeneous then? I don't want to rule out studying tourists as a historically significant group...but I'm leery of the liberties Rothman takes here, painting with too wide a brush.

Week #13 comments

See my comments on Ben's Blog:
http://huggins616.blogspot.com/

and

Rick's
http://gaulthist616.blogspot.com/

Week #13/Post #13

I was so happy to read Jim's blog before starting mine...he hit the wall around page 250. I think I maybe lasted a few more pages, but was definitely drowning by Chapter Nine "The Peanut Farmer and the Pork Barrel." I also get the sense from Jim's blog that he, like me, was aware something wasn't going well, but it was a sort of vague, can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-it wrongness. I found the book to be a terrific read, entertaining, with well-chosen turns of phrase and vivid images of key figures. But I still felt like I was slogging...trying to wade through one of those swamps the Corp of Engineers is so eager to dredge. This was an odd sensation for me. That slogging feeling generally goes along with books that are written in such obtuse and convoluted language I eventually give up. That wasn't the problem here. On the other hand, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City was a terrific read, entertaining, with well-chosen turns of phrase and vivid images of key figures, and I chomped through that in an afternoon. Cadillac Desert had me looking at the page numbers and rolling me eyes, muttering "Oh my God, I'm only on page 113?!"

If I'm obsessing over my reaction to the readability it is because I think therein lies the key to what is right and wrong with this book. Reisner picked an incredibly important and fascinating topic and tried to cover too much ground within it. He chose not to give his work the academic treatment, with footnoted references. At times I found this frustrating, because I wanted to know more about his sources. On the other hand, this choice freed him to take a less comprehensive approach, and do more illuminative writing on two or three narrower, specific cases (Like The Devil in the White City). He didn't do this, of course, and I think that is the problem. For example, the Owens Valley story is perfect for this sort of treatment. And his chapter on Dominy hints at the possibilities this kind of approach could have offered. In fact, the whole book has dozens and dozens of examples showing Reisner could have written a manuscript like Erik Larson's and done it monstrously well. But by tackling the entirety of the subject he fails on both fronts--his is neither the definitive scholarly work nor the exquisitely written case study. Which is a shame because for all my slogging and drowning, I still liked what I read...go figure.

Week #12/Post #12

Would the real Roy Baker please stand up?

My build-out is on the influence of the dime novel. First off, I'm sorry to report I didn't find a "smoking gun" dime novel that is exactly like our case. Nevertheless, after reading a few dozen of them, and a few dozen articles about dime novels from the 1880's, there is no doubt that Roy was acting out the conventional dime novel script. All the elements are there--the glorification of the outlaw, the pledges of loyalty, the promise of death to traitors, the focus on a hideout, the melodramatic death threat lines, and the building up of a gang. Turns out these were all the basic building blocks of many, many dime novels. Also turns out, society was very concerned about the influence of dime novels, and about boys and young men acting out these elements, just like Roy did. There are all kinds of articles from 1870's and 1880's magazines and newspapers about this. So anyway, feeling quite happy about all this.

What I'm not happy about is who the Hell was Roy Baker? Although it isn't critical to my paper, since I'm looking at something that would have influenced Roy's life before he got to Fort D.A. Russell, I'd like to know a little bit about that life. The problem is there was no Roy Baker that was born in Peoria in 1865 (which is what it says on his enlistment papers). According to census records, there were no Roy or Leroy Bakers born in Missouri or Illinois in 1865. There was a Marion Baker born in Peoria in 1865 to farmers who was still in Peoria in 1880, and I thought that was our boy...until I found out Marion Baker lived to be about 70 years old. There was also a George Baker who was born in Peoria in 1865 to farmers, and in 1880 the family had moved two counties over and were still farmers. That could be him...but the name is too common to know for sure. Plus the enlistment papers are supposed to say if the person lived somewhere other than where they were born. You can see this on Lyons, Pence, and Thornburg's papers. But there's nothing like that on Roy's, making it pretty difficult to track down. This week I'm going after my last possible lead (and then I have to give up and move on)...after Roy's death two payments were made by the Army paymaster in November, 1890. I'm heading to the College Park National Archives site this Wednesday to see if there is a record of where those payments went.

On Monday I'll also be bringing in the Final Statement from Fort D.A. Russell for Roy's death (kinda like the death certificate and inventory of his possessions by the chaplain). Turns out Roy is buried on the base cemetery. There is a website that has the headstone information for that cemetery:
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/wy/laramie/cemeteries/fewarren
Oddly his gravestone lists his date of death as: 31 OCT 1890...I guess that's the date when they got around to actually giving him a marker.

If I ever make it to Cheyenne, Wyoming, I'll have to stop by and pay my respects...I've somehow grown attached to our little screw-up hooligan.

Week #11/Comments

This week's lucky winners are:
Marty
http://martyscowgirlblog.blogspot.com/
and Ben
http://huggins616.blogspot.com/

Week #11/Post #11

This was an interesting week for synergy. I was bouncing back and forth between Indians in Unexpected Place and Becoming Mexican American, I was knocking out a lot of my Roy Baker research, and I was still thinking about images and photographs from last week's class. And into this hodge podge of discordant influences I kept returning to the construction of identity, both within and without.

Native Americans attempted to negotiate their identity in a 20th century world, but did so in constant opposition to the mountain of images and portrayals that occurred in the 19th century. Deloria mentions a few--the dime novel, the Wild West show, world's fair exhibits--but the list could go on to include illustrated biographies, picturesque books, Rocky Mountain School (The Hudson River School's Expansionist phase) paintings, railroad advertising, museum displays and (why not) those ubiquitous cigar shop statues. And if that weren't bad enough, white society didn't just rest on its laurels there. The 20th century was spent in constant visual pursuit of portraying the Native American as the "vanishing race." When the National Park Service promotes national parks with the slogan "His Hunting Ground of Yesterday" you know you have trouble.

All of which is to say it was really interesting to read Deloria's take on this, which didn't dwell any more than he had to on how white America saw Native Americans. Instead he wanted to show how Native Americans worked to get over that huge mountain of imagery and find a place for themselves on the other side. As Deloria illustrates again and again, sometimes the mountain was just too high. Going back to last week's discussion of photographs, I think we could expand on that using Deloria to discuss the power of images in general. Constructing identity in opposition to such a sea of imagery proved difficult if not sometimes impossible. I think that tells us as much about the power of the image and expectation as it does about the struggle itself.

Which is why the Mexican-American story is interesting as a counterpoint. Certainly there were some images and stereotypes. Sanchez gets into the "dirty Mexican" stereotype a bit as well as the "lazy Mexican." But what is lacking in this story is the avalanche of Anglo images that attempt to construct Mexican-American identity for them. The more pervasive stereotypical images, such as the awful "South of the Border" billboards leading to Dillon, SC, begin to emerge in the 1950's, after Sanchez's range of focus. In the absence of having to work so hard to overcome something not of their creation (i.e. Deloria's Native Americans), the Mexican-Americans in Sanchez's book are freer to negotiate their identity and be more selective in the process of "becoming Mexican-American." Admitted, I'm projecting a thesis onto Sanchez's work that he himself probably wouldn't be interested in...he makes it clear that he isn't interested in studying cultural identity through the prism of "two cultural poles: Mexicano versus Anglo United States." (6) But after working with images for two weeks straight now--their power, their constructive abilities, their influence--I can't help but feel that both their abundance and their absence have profound effects on how much freedom particular groups have in creating identity for themselves.

Week #10/Comments

You can find my comments on Audrey's site:
http://ahaugan616.blogspot.com/
and
Steve's site:
http://westwardmovement.blogspot.com/

Week #10/Post #10

By now I've probably tipped my hand enough for most to know what kind of history interests me. I'm fascinated by the power of things to shape and construct consciousness or identity, perception or meaning. The more "mundane" or "everyday" the thing, the more interested I become--advertising, posters, postcards, fair exhibits, labels, travel brochures, and holiday ephemera is my sort of "wish list" of everything I would love to work with. In these everyday, mundane objects I want to look for greater significance in the molding of important historical trends, identities or understandings.

Precisely because this is my particular area of interest, I read Print the Legend not just for the information contained within the pages, but for how Martha Sandweiss set about presenting that information. By the end of the book, I felt like Sandweiss had written on three tracks: a strong historical survey, a decent reflective argument, and a tentative constructive argument.

Historical survey is certainly a useful, but ultimately a very safe kind of writing. Sandweiss gives us a well-written, well-documented historical survey of the business of photography. Commercial photography emerged in fits and starts, hampered by both technological and narrative shortcomings. Sandweiss particularly provides an excellent background on the narrative side of the equation, showing how other commercial visual formats excelled (panorama, lithography) and how photography worked to catch up and hold its own against these other mediums. Since historical survey doesn't rely on an thesis argued and supported, her focus on the West seemed more a device to keep her book from swelling to 600 pages.

Sandweiss does venture more into thesis territory with the second track within Print the Legend, that of a reflective argument. The reflective argument is a thesis, albeit a fairly timid one, which says that the consciousness/identity/understanding of a particular group or thing or event can be seen (reflected) in the output of popular culture, mass culture, folk culture, and/or consumer culture (the vagaries of these categories are less important to me than their commonality--they are not traditional primary source materials like census records and voter tabulations). Sandweiss argues that photography was one such mode of cultural output that reflected (in this case) Western mythology, Manifest Destiny, and the inevitability of American success in the West. "...Western landscape photographs became a potent part of prevailing myths about the West as a blank slate upon which Americans could inscribe their own future." (206)

Sandweiss enters into the third track of her book most effectively in "Photography and the American Indian." Here she attempts to move beyond the simply reflective argument into the constructive one. To use one of my favorite metaphors for this question, she moves beyond the mirror to the mold. Instead of saying photography merely reflected or mirrored American attitudes about the West (as is the case for "Photography and the American Future") in this chapter she argues that photography actually worked to mold or construct attitudes/perceptions/understandings of Native Americans. "But increasingly it must be understood as a construction of a particular moment of American history, a particular public need fed by shrewd photographers." (273) To my mind the constructive argument is certainly the most difficult kind to make when working with this type of source material, but ultimately the most satisfying. EP Thompson wades into these waters in Making of the English Working Class as does Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Both are excellent examples of the constructive thesis. Sandweiss, by contrast, seems timid when employing this line of historical argument. Although in her epilogue she writes "They [photographs] provide evidence of the ways in which patronage shaped the production of western views and the ways in which particular publication strategies shaped the reception of these views" [341, my emphasis added], she is only willing to really dig deep into that argument with the one chapter. Although the rest of her book is still interesting, insightful, and useful, her strongest and most risky chapter calls attention to the timidity of the rest of her work.

I suppose there is even a fourth track at work here, and that is Sandweiss's own roadmap for how a historian should work with photographs. Oddly, I had just finished Levine's "Historian and the Icon" on the very same topic. Photographs do seem to hold a strange place for historians--sometimes high art, sometimes popular culture, sometimes a commodity of the mass-consumer market, photographs are difficult to quantify. Sandweiss spends considerable time reminding us of both the strengths and shortcomings of this particular source material. She also echoes many other arguments I've read in which historians go to great lengths to justify the use of such "trivialities" as (in her case) stereographs and panorama paintings, or (in my case) posters, labels, advertisements, etc. I keep hoping for the day when such justifications are no longer necessary, but since this was just published in 2002, I suspect we still have a ways to go.