Category: Reading Reflections

As a first time blogger, I’m not sure what I’m doing but I’ll give it a shot.  I missed the deadline on this blog but I thought I’d follow through with this anyway.  In the readings for last week JB Jackson talks a lot about the the roadside landscape as well as the small town  rural landscape, both of which I could personally relate to.  Born and raised in small town Idaho along US 95, I’ve spent my whole life going up and down that highway, in and out of the small towns that appear every 20-30 minutes as you drive.  Every town is the same and every town is different.  Each is unique in it’s own way too.  As you pass the many old homesteads that make up all the farms and ranches between these small towns you see what I call the “real” Idaho and every broken down tractor, barking dog and old barn along the highway make me feel like I’m home.

The chapter that inspired and provoked the most thought for me this week was chapter 12 “Normative Dimensions of Landscape.” The discussion on Thoroughbred Park was of particular interest, as my thesis project has a great deal…actually everything to do with parks. From previous research and required historiographical papers I am well aware of urban parks utilized as dividers between commercial and residential areas, along racial neighborhoods, or gang territories. Schien describes this in relation to Thoroughbred Park in writing “The site is…a place that joins and separates several functional areas of the city” (214). What was in a sense revolutionary to me was when Schien went on further to describe that the “Thoroughbred Park hillside displaying the grazing horses was literally built for the park to effectively hide the East End [coded as the ghetto] from view for anyone approaching the central city” (214). I would like to think I have always been aware of public space having the potential to manipulate meaning or disguise/camouflage unwanted areas. But I have never before thought about my role in the larger scheme of things. This led to a slight panic attack where I sat frozen for approximately 5 minutes as my mind went a million miles an hour in every direction possible. All at once I came to the realization I have a responsibility to make sure the history and landscape interpretation I come up for my project encapsulates all dimensions—social, agricultural, political, etc. Fear crept in that Richard H. Schein would find the park proposal I will eventually write and point out all its discrepancies. I laughed at myself after I calmed down from my panic attack because that ridiculous quote from Spiderman popped into my head “Where there is great power comes great responsibility.” But if I’m being honest, public historians do wield some power in how we relay information to the public. Ethics and motivations matter when “doing public history.” At times I find this incredibly daunting, but if Spiderman can handle it, I’m confident I can too.

When will the vampires of banality succeed at sucking dry the vitality of public history? It may be all too soon unless the normative and positive elements of public history-including the reading of cultural landscapes-can be brought to coexist. In order of value positive/objective judgements seem much more valuable than those which are normative/subjective.

The priority of positive judgements exists on two levels. First they are needed to evaluate the value of normative opinions. If normative judgements are ever to transcend the needs and desires of individuals and have value for societies or groups of individuals, positive analysis will be necessary to commonalities of shared interests/needs. While it is not very popular to posit characteristics of ‘human nature’ or elements of a universally shared humanity that would transcend if not determine culture, the means and tools to do this are finally becoming available available. The second reason positive judgements are needed is so that cultural landscapes can be used to impact social structures. Advances in the empirical reading of cultural landscapes, including if and how cultural landscapes actually impact social structures, is necessary if planners actually want to effectively use cultural landscapes to change social conditions.

One of the chapters that I enjoyed reading the most was Chapter 6 and its stab at trying to teach students how to read cultural landscapes, and how that can be compared to reading any historical document. Pierce Lewis writes, “landscape is a historic document that tells a story—actually, multiple stories—about the people who created the landscape and the cultural context in which that landscape was embedded.” Pierce also points out that there is no one single author in the landscape, and they are incomplete documents. This seems so obvious, but it takes someone like Pierce to point it out for all of us to have that “aha” moment. When thinking about how we can practice public history, I can see how looking to the built environment can help us retell a story, but that as scholars, we need to keep in mind the bias of the builder, and seek out other sources to tell the rest of the story. It’s just like any other historical research: be cognizant of your sources’ bias and beliefs, and be critical. The only difference is that some of our sources will be a different medium.

The rest of the readings helped to reinforce that as researchers we need to ask questions and be critical of our sources, and that if we can read the landscapes as objectively as possible, we can come to new and exciting conclusions about that place. The exciting part of this conclusion is that even in the simple and ordinary spaces, we can find profound reflections of ourselves, our community, and our region. In chapter 16 James Rojas explores how front yards are “exuberant vignettes of the individual owners’ lives.” I found this so interesting and poignant that I have started to pay special attention to everyone’s front yards on my walk to work/school in my new neighborhood. My yard, since we just bought the house, indicates that no one uses the space since it is in such disrepair. But my neighbors have nicely mowed lawns, and very few outdoor decorations or something that would indicate the personality of the residents. I hope as I look closer I might be able to come to know what my neighbors want the world to see. But more importantly, how am I going to plan my environment, and what will that say about me?

I agree with Peirce Lewis’ argument that students can be taught to “read” landscapes, developing the “necessary skills and vocabulary” for doing so if they don’t possess them already (86). However, with regard to historical landscapes, I wonder if the direction that public history is taking—particularly the trend towards technology—is making it more difficult rather than more efficient for people to develop the skill of reading landscapes.

Lewis states that students “need to develop and cultivate the habit of using their eyes” and questioning the landscape they are observing (93). Interpretive signs and mobile devices, for example, may serve well to give people the necessary “vocabulary” that Lewis mentions. However, if the landscape they are observing employs an overabundance of signs, or if observers need to focus intently on a mobile device in order to learn facts about the landscape, does all of the reading and technological stimulation hinder them from truly “using their eyes”–i.e. actually observing the landscape itself?

Technological innovations can of course be crucial in conveying information about a particular landscape, but I sometimes wonder if too much technology isn’t more likely to get in the way of students’ “readings” of the physical—as opposed to the digital—landscape. (As helpful as I think it may be to have mobile tours of national parks, for example, the prospect of visitors staring at iPhones while the scenery passes them by worries me.) Although I may be somewhat of a Luddite when it comes to the use of technology in education, I am by no means completely pessimistic about it, and I look forward to seeing what comes of our attempts to impart knowledge of various cultural landscapes through our mobile public history projects this semester.

While reading Chapter 12 in Everyday America about the racial landscapes I gave some thought to the few ethnic neighborhoods in Boise’s past and those that may be developing as refugees are placed in certain Boise neighborhoods. This explanation of racialized landscapes from page 203 brought to mind another Idaho connection: “American cultural landscapes that are particularly implicated in racist practice and the perpetuation of (or challenge to) racist social relations.” After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and we entered World War II, Idaho became home to the Minidoka War Relocation Center, a.k.a. an internment camp complete with barbed wire fences and watch towers.

If anyone is planning a trip to Burley to see the wagon ruts swing off the highway east of Jerome and Twin Falls to a little place called Eden. On some maps the site of the camp is referred to as Hunt Station. I’ve heard a few stories on Boise State Public Radio in the last several years about the camp site. It made the news partly because it was made a National Historic site which is overseen by the National Park Service. More recently there has been some controversy because a cattle feeding operation wants to build a facility about 1 ½ miles from the site. Ironically, the camp held about 13,000 internees and the feed lot is proposed to handle about 13,000 head of cattle. Those opposing the permit feel that smell and noise would greatly effect the experience of visitors to the camp. Last fall I heard that the decision to grant the permit was upheld in court.

Coincidentally, last fall I picked up a novel called Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. The main characters in the book lived in the already segregated Chinese and Japanese sections
of Seattle, Washington at the start of WWII. Part of the story centers on the relocation of the residents of the Japanese section to camps, many specifically to Minidoka. If I remember correctly 2/3 of those interned were American citizens by birth. What was barren, southern Idaho desert landscape…very cold in winter and very hot in summer became for the years 1942 to 1945 a racial project. Now it is an area about which decisions have to be made as to what is valuable to preserve.

The emergence of the British coffee house is a perfect example of a cultural shift as an expression through urban landscape, visible in the way that public space was used and considered in early modern, pre-industrial England.  I am referring, in particular, to the political and intellectual landscape of the coffeehouse, which was at that time a growing phenomena in European cities.  By taking the Marxist approach outlined in Everyday America we can attempt to determine who and what shaped these urban and rural landscapes.  First, it is clear that these spaces were tied materially and economically to trade commerce.  The exchange of goods that took place in the 17th century directly influenced different social movements by providing a different type of social atmosphere to the public, which in turn influenced the political and economic fabric of the larger community.  This is a development that was at once an outlet to and of pre-industrial social organization, and it served as a social agitator to the old, monarchical social structure.  The institution had its beginnings with the older order of established intellectuals at Oxford, but eventually (whether the monarchy liked it or not) trickled its way to the working man.  The coffee house exhibits many of these transformational experiences and expressions, visible in each of its different forms and stages of development.  I think an investigation into the “sense of space” will merit a variety of meaning, a plethora of definitions to individuals of the 16th and 17th centuries, in accordance to their class, political stance, and (but not limit to) religious leanings, which are all a part of the larger cultural surroundings.  In turn, the social opportunity that the coffee house delivered to individuals allowed them to influence their larger social experience.  For this particular example, I think it would be possible to look at  the development of the coffee house in order to understand how class influences social spaces.  I can also see how an investigation could illustrate how hegemony and ideology is disseminated through the control of knowledge and ideas, and how hegemony and ideology is challenged through social channels such as the coffee house, as it provided urban populations with a stimulating, sobering, and egalitarian (ish) forum not previously open to working and lower classes.

The older I get, the more I realize there is so little I actually know. It was invigorating and highly educational to read the assigned chapters and article this past week. My knowledge of cultural landscapes was shaky at best prior to the readings, but the readings cemented a foundation for further understanding and reading. I appreciated the introduction to the study of landscapes in chapter one as well as the biographical information provided on J.B. Jackson.

This being a public history course, I could not help but find connections between the study of cultural landscapes and public history. In many ways it seems that some of the driving concepts of studying cultural landscapes can be applied toward public history. In chapter one, Groth and Wilson explained that Jackson “took ordinary settings usually overlooked by academic study and made them interesting” (11). This makes me question whether public historians are doing enough to research and analyze topics that are unseen or dismissed. Public history can be so much more than an interpretive sign. I think Jackson’s passion is inspiration for future public history projects. Additionally, Jackson’s fervent belief in making the information accessible to the “intelligent layman” again can be brought back to the application of history for the public. The hoarding of new perspectives and knowledge by elite scholars within their inner circle is not unlike a squirrel stock piling nuts for the winter. Share the wealth. History, in general, should be available and obtainable by all. Another lesson learned from Jackson are his methods in asking probing questions. Instead of inquiring “What’s the history of this particular place?” models like “How do places like this come to exist?” and “What do they mean to us today?” are questions historians, public or otherwise, should consider (114-115).

On a side note, I was fascinated by Jackson’s beliefs on historic preservation. I found his reasoning compelling, especially the idea that “preserving architectural relics that outlived their social usefulness was a sign of obsessive traditionalism and cultural rigidity…[and] should not be allowed to constrain the vitality of evolving social forces” (74-75). This made me ponder other perspectives on the topic and where they diverge or intersect with Jackson’s belief. Needless to say, I am excited to start Historic Preservation by Tyler, Ligibel, and Tyler.