historiography – American Disasters

January 29, 2014December 16, 2020

Historiography Persuasion

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Let me begin by agreeing with AJ’s comments about reading through Eli’s post. Bringing in the Belk parking spot certainly made me laugh and made Turner’s article seem even more far-fetched, stereotyped, and prejudice. While I shared many of the same initial thoughts that Eli describes, Conon’s historiography almost justified Turner’s paper into making “THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY” seem accurate and almost skillfully neglectful. Maybe I have fallen into Cronon’s trap, yet after reading the historiography Turner’s general thesis seems much more accurate, so long as you avoid the problems about democracy, national character, theological problems, and his stereotyping of frontier “types”. (171)

During my initial reading of Turner, I had many of the same feelings that Eli referenced and noted many of the critiques that Cronon brought up. I thought Turner lacked detail, failed to acknowledge many of the underlying factors of western expansion, and his “analytical shortcomings.” (170) Nevertheless, I was slowly persuaded to acknowledge Turner’s entire thesis after I finished Cronon. Regardless by how much historians reject the structure and thesis of Turner’s work, we are still reliant on the work today. As noted throughout Cronon, we acknowledge the article predominantly for the academic ingenuity to understand history through narrative. If one consider Turner’s article as more of a narrative for history as a whole, using the broad theme of the American frontier, than maybe his piece has merit. Regardless of whether Turner though of this piece as a story or strict scholarly writing is insignificant. If Turner was trying to explain why he believed the course of American history was going to take a drastic turn in the years after 1893, than his paper narrates a plausible story behind his reasoning.

As I re-read the last portions of Turner’s article (after reading Cronon who caused me to ignore some of the obvious flaws) the general ideas seemed to make sense. If we ignore some of details, the American frontier has a unique and possibly accurate parallel with the Mediterranean. Maybe, in 1893 when Turner wrote the article, the idea of expansion had been lost. Without the idea of free land and the frontier, maybe Americans felt forced to modernize. Without the possibility of horizontal expansion, was the vertical expansion (urbanization and industrialization) the next logical chapter in American history? Certainly, I do not agree with everything that Turner is saying, but his thesis, at the most basic level, is hard to ignore. As Cronon points out, a logical story is hard to ignore. If we compare the expansion of American history to various country histories and the interaction with American landscape, maybe Turner was right.

My biggest take away from these two reading’s lies in my drastic openness to Turner’s argument. Can a good historiography like Cronon’s change your mind on even the most farfetched ideas? Certainly this will not be true for every article, but I was struck by how logical Cronon’s approach was to an article I had nearly dismissed.

January 20, 2014December 16, 2020

The Merit of Specificity

Blog Post #1 (for Thursday, 1/23)

In his article “Bringing the City Back In”, James Connolly expresses dissatisfaction with “new urban history”, an approach to studying urban environments that emphasizes social science. Connolly explains that the “new urban history” method is too general, and seeks an “all encompassing synthesis [that is both] an unlikely and undesirable prospect” (264). He advocates bringing “the city back in” by addressing specific cultural, political, social and economic identities of different physical areas (264).

Charles Calhoun would likely agree with this approach. “Moving Beyond Stereotypes of the Gilded Age” debunks a traditionally bland conception of the period by emphasizing its significance: “the United States experienced a profound transformation during these years, with lasting implications for the century that followed” (3). Furthermore, it scolds educators for neglecting the period in favor of the “seemingly more momentous” (3). Calhoun suggests that keywords like “industrialization” and “urbanization” are not a sufficient characterization of the Gilded Age.

One of the central questions of histories of the Gilded Age is this issue of method. Is the generalized overview more illuminating than the examination of a specific instance, or vice versa? The former identifies trends and transformations on the national scale, while the latter captures the “place”—the cultural, political, social and economic identity—of a single “space”. In her post for this week, Emily Taylor writes that we study history “to better understand the present vis-à-vis the past”. But for the average student of history, there is little wisdom to be gained from the study of broad, general trends. Emily’s philosophy promotes the kind of historiography that James Connolly advocates.

Referring back to last week’s reading, Kenneth Hewitt’s writing in Regions of Risk exemplifies a poorly balanced historiography that depends on generalities. For example, Hewitt explains that progress is a double-edged sword—often responsible for causing disasters and often relied on for preventing them. He also explains that there are two types of risk: routine risk, which are widespread and recognized, and extreme events, which constitute a disaster. He mentions the Titanic and the earthquake in Kobe only for their dramatic effect.

January 18, 2014December 16, 2020

Approaching the Gilded Age: Argumentative vs. Informative

The authors of “Moving Beyond Stereotypes of the Gilded Age” and the “Introduction” from The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Student Companion approach discussing the Gilded Age in two distinct ways. Calhoun provides readers with an outline for an argument calling for a reevaluation of the stereotypes associated with the Gilded Age, while the author(s) of the “Introduction” briefly summarizes key events and issues of the period, presumably in order to contextualize arguments he will make later in the book. Because the authors have different reasons for writing, they present different types of central questions. I find the picture a reader gets when studying these two texts together interesting.

Calhoun implicitly poses several questions about the stereotypes surrounding the Gilded Age: what are the stereotypes, why do they exist, to what extent are they accurate, and why should the nuances matter? These are all historiographical questions, although in order to understand the answers to them, Calhoun provides readers with some information about the period itself. In this sense, information about the Gilded Age is provided as a vehicle for furthering an argument, and not for the sake of defining the term. For example, in Calhoun’s account of the creation of the term “Gilded Age,” he explains that the authors of the book by the same name caricaturized the corruption of the age, and we should therefore distinguish the Gilded Age from its negative connotation. Here Calhoun draws a line between how authors of the time saw their contemporaries, and how we as historians should see them. What frustrates me about this reading is Calhoun’s failure to explain why the nuances surrounding the stereotypes of the Gilded Age matter. He argues that historians and students lose something if we understand the Gilded Age as gilded, but does not do more than generalize about why that is.

The author of the “Introduction” presents a number of pervading issues of the Gilded Age: what is the government’s role in regulating the economy, how do expansion and imperialism affect international relations, how can we maintain democracy in unstable times, etc. Although he does proffer a few historiographical questions like “how can we define a period of time?” he does so only to provide his own answer to the question and not to explore the topic in any detail. However, I enjoyed reading this text because the pervading questions of the age reveal an advanced public consciousness that refutes my notions about the corruption of the period, and as a result answers Calhoun’s question about why the Gilded Age should be studied without any preconceived notions.

I enjoyed Nate’s post about interdisciplinary studies, and agree that it is impossible to study any event without considering it from several points of view. I would add that it is also impossible to read a text without regard to others we read, as putting texts in conversation can provide us with answers to questions we would not even have if we read each text in a vacuum.