Author: rdaigh

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Chapter seven of Typhoid Mary looks at the long-term tenacity and cultural persistence of Mary Mallon. Much like our titanic song assignment, it is looking at the changing perspectives of how people look at Mary. The image of Mary changed rapidly over the years with relation to the question of how to keep the public safe without impeding individual freedoms. The typhoid Mary persona created by the writers ranged from someone feared, shunned, or uses her sickness to purposely harm others; as time goes on she is then portrayed as a woman with strength, and puts the people first. Writers start her legacy by saying she was a “hapless menace” and “dangerous but blameless.” (Typhoid Mary 203) Soon after her incarceration writers used Mary as a means to promote the study and acceptance of modern science. Skip forward a 50 years and now they are writing about the strange innocent killer. In 1966 John Lents wrote about Mary’s “Strange Case” and depicting her as evil with no regard to the welfare of others. Just over 3 years later in 1970 another writer called Mary dangerous and incorrigible. That writer, however, was writing for a magazine whose goal was tor try and popularize history so the story is probably overdramatized. Just 9 years later a new perspective came about. This one was of Mary as completely feminine but intentionally evil. From the 1980’s to the present we now look at Mary’s story as one of personal sadness. The narrative is completely compelling and try to make us understand the position Mary was put in.
Heaven01 had mentioned in a previous post that it is good to question history so we can get obtain better understandings of events. “We question [history] to learn.” To question is the key to a good historiography is to look at the background of events at the time and ask questions like, what was going on now to make writers think this way about a sick woman? If we look back to when this story took place and ask ourselves, was imprisoning Mary for something she couldn’t help right? Or can we learn anything about the way these carriers were treated in the past compared to how they are treated now? History is like a river you can never step in the same river twice but the feeling of the river stays the same.

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For my history outside the class room assignment I visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission. Located in downtown San Juan Capistrano, the mission is a building I pass by every day on my way to work. I chose this location for its convenience as well as its personal significance for lack of a better term. I say this because at my elementary school all fourth graders would go on a field trip to visit the mission. California history was a big part of the fourth grade curriculum. I can remember visiting the mission with my class 11 or 12 years ago. The mission itself was founded in 1775 by father Lasuen in October. Within a month word came that there was a revolt in San Diego so the soldiers and religious heads left to go help. Just a little over one year later Saint Junipero Serra led an expedition crew and re founded the mission. This location is one of twenty-one missions founded in California to spread Catholicism.
Looking at the mission now with the knowledge and perspective of a historian and not a small child was interesting. I noticed things that now that I didn’t before. I noticed etchings on the door ways and walls, how well preserved the structure is, and how many artifacts actually survived to present day. The building itself was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1812 and restoration really didn’t begin until the 1910’s however many took interest in its beauty as early as the 1870’s. My ten-year-old self always found it odd that other places, like the east coast, didn’t have missions like this. They had towns dedicated to the teachings of Catholicism and Christianity but never ones as intricate or important as the mission system. I realized the answer while I was looking at the ruins of the great church. The stones that made up the structure one, weren’t used for building on the east coast or Canada, and two wouldn’t provide enough warmth during the winter. The missions were essentially compounds where people would work, pray, and live in. The climate of California has very little variation throughout the seasons and so extra insulation wouldn’t be needed. Plus, the native Californians would be the furthest away from the influences of Catholicism or any culture from the conquering nations. While France and Britain were fighting over territory in the east Spain was more than happy to insert its powers on the west coast and their indigenous people.

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My In Theory Podcast was entitled Our Quantified / Cyborg Selves. The podcasts focuses on the connection of humanity, its dependence on technology, and how technology has changed us throughout the years. They say that thinking about ourselves in connection to all this technology puts into perspective the question of what it means to be human. It states that technology has integrated itself with humans as a whole as early as the industrial revolution. They reference Female Theorist Donna Haraway who wrote a book called The Cyborg Manifesto in 1985. She argued that we are already cyborgs because of the technology we were already wearing and carrying around. She thought that we are starting to think of ourselves as machines, not only by the technology we wear but by the metaphors we use. We talk about processing information or needing to reboot something. Around 17 minutes the hosts brought up this idea, “we are starting to think of ourselves as machines, not only by the technology we wear but by the metaphors we use. We talk about processing information or needing to reboot something.”
They mentioned that the language started to shift during the industrial revolution. The trend of talking about ourselves has continued and integrated itself into our everyday language especially when connected to physical activity. They say that thinking about ourselves in connection to all this technology puts into perspective the question of what it means to be human.
While this is a valid point, I’m not sure that’s the case for every person; or at least the people I’m around. (Maybe its different for me because I’m surrounded by musicians who are surrounded by their high school students.) While the environment you surround yourself in does have an effect on your linguistic style, I don’t think that technology has integrated that far. The trend of talking about ourselves in connection to technology has grown but I don’t think that technological talk has as big of an influence as they theorize.
Now the second theorist makes more sense to me personally. Theorist Marshall McLuhan’s idea of media as an extension of the self. When new technology comes out, we shift our lives around this new technology. We get a new extension of ourselves changes the way we engage with the world. For instance, I use a Fitbit because it tells me the time and monitors my heart rate, or I freak out about my phone going dead because it is important for my work and family to get a hold of me. They stress that we are trading learning for the purpose of learning, generosity, and the beauty of art for the ease of living and the gathering of statistics and the need of productivity and achievement. As long as we find a way to balance the productivity of technology and the leisure of humanity we will continue to be successful humans and not cold robots.

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Much like the Gilded Age readings that we have done in class, “Dusty Volumes: Environmental Disaster and Economic Collapse in the 1930s” supports the idea that its subject matter has not been studied enough by the academic community. This piece of work is a review of the books The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression by Paul Bonnifield and Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster. Clayton R. Koppes, the author of this review, praises the two authors for their thesis of the dust bowl but notes that their shortcomings in establishing a more theoretical context. Charles W. Calhoun, author of “Moving Beyond Stereotypes of the Gilded Age” also sought to achieve the abolition of stereotypes and to provide evidence of others who were rethinking the history of the gilded age.
Slee72897 had cited a quote by Popkin concerning the way historians look at history and historiography. They cite the “necessity of study to understand the past deeper and more insightfully. He also says that historiography challenged ‘historians to look at the past from new angles’ because ‘historiographical disagreements help keep the discipline alive’ (Popkin 8).” I believe that this relates to the Koppes review as it is also saying that we need to look beyond the stereotypes of the dust bowl to discover more interesting and important characteristics that only can occure when looking at a source with more “explicit, and more developed, theory” (Koppes 540).
As for the video we watched, it definitely captured what I believe was the depression era attitude. It was depressing and many people were nervous because they had no knowledge of what was to come or when the drought would end.

 

 

 

Just a side note, their choice in music creeped me out and I don’t know why.

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The arguments regarding the historiographic authenticity of Issac’s Storm brought about in this article against the are valid. The book does seem to take liberties regarding characters and events, and tries to cover this up with complex explanations of how the weather is studied and details of the storm. While it is harsh I agree with the Meteorological Journal Weatherwise when they called “Larson’s narrative ‘reading at its best.’” While I think that the book gives an excellent illustration of what an event like the Galveston hurricane would be like, I don’t however think it should be classified as nonfiction like the author is trying to make it out to be. Even in the book’s notes that we observed in class were based on an event that could be related to the hurricane or, in the case of the orphanage, names of characters that could have survived.
This is not to completely disregard the historical accuracy of the book as I’m sure he thoroughly research this event and wrote a story as close to his findings as possible, but if you are going to pass something off as history then all of the events should be as accurate as possible. I agree with mvanderdussen’s statement “I think that Larson did bend the truth in a few places, but it was to help add readability to the book….” While not being my cup of tea, the book was readable. I do like his writing style and I am currently listening to his book The Devil in the White City. But just like Issac’s Storm I wouldn’t classify it as nonfiction. In my opinion Erik Larson is an interesting author who seems to think that history needs to be spiced up with a narrative to appeal to a wider audience.

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Like @jessicak, I too wrote about the comparison of Chicago to the Roman Empire that the author highlights. When I first came across the comparison, it seemed like a ridiculous idea. People are actually comparing the Roman Empire to the City of Chicago, but then I thought more about it. What stuck out to me was not the similarities of urbanization or the eventual downfall caused by corruption that the two cities shared, but the similar way both cities are written about.

Cronon mentions that writers in support of the Chicago-Rome comparison, or “Chicago Boosters” as he calls them, were attempting to gain their city the same recognition and glory that was bestowed on the historically recognized urban empires (42). On page 43 Cronon highlights that the Chicago boosters “were quick to compare their city [Chicago] to Rome” but would habitually forget to mention the accomplishments of another major industrialized city, New York. And on page 45, though this is certainly not the last example of support contained in the text, as stated by William Bross “Chicago has ‘not a particle of jealousy in her nature,’” when addressing the competition of other cities. He continues “the more you prosper, the more you all will contribute to the wealth and the prosperity of Chicago,” suggesting the believe that Chicago was the supreme city that all, should if they do not already, strive to be like.

These examples closely mimic the writers of Ancient Rome. Rome is essentially a city that borrowed Greek culture but does not want to give any credit to the Greeks. The Greeks had Homer’s Epic the Iliad and Odyssey where the Roman’s responded with Virgil’s Aeneid. Where the Greeks had the gods Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon, the Romans has Jupiter, Mars, and Neptune. It could even be said that the stories which make up the battle with the Etruscans, as Horatius Cocles on the bridge, can be seen as an adage to the Battle of Thermopylae; of course three Romans are just as good as 300 Spartan Greeks.

Though the subject matter of the two periods of writing are not identical. The general themes are still the same. Just as the Romans avoided praising the Greeks, the Chicago boosters avoided praising other major and up and coming cities.

Lastly as @Jessicak said, “the city was so focused on the fame they would receive from their advancements in technology… they didn’t worry about other aspects, like corruption, that also lead to the fall of Rome.” Chicago reached its height of prosperity by the end of the century and Conon tells us that “most die-hard champions of other places,” seemed comfortable with Chicago’s success that they were willing to say that it was the “Metropolis of the Great West.”(46)

~Rebekah Daigh

Now our good town has taken a new fit:
Each man you meet by poetry is bit;
E’en I, who vow I never write a verse,
Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse;
Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call
For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all.
None dares be pilot who ne’er steered a craft;
No untrained nurse administers a draught;
None but skilled workmen handle workmen’s tools:
But verses all men scribble, wise or fools.
-Horace Epistles II.1