Searching for Local History

Map of Historic Sites in the East Lansing Area of Michigan

From http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/hso/map.asp

Having just started Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, by David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty, it came as no surprise that our professor wanted our class to do some exploring of local history. He directed us to the Michigan Historical Center Website, which will search for historical sites by city. In the area around East Lansing, there were a good number of historical homes that were still being lived in, but I felt uncomfortable with the idea of going to check out a house where someone was living. Continuing down the list I found a toll house that was built about halfway through the nineteenth century.

It is quite possible that the Alonzo Proctor Tollhouse is the only historic tollhouse left in Michigan. It was originally on the Lansing to Howell plank road that connected Lansing all the way to Detroit, after the state capital was moved to Lansing. The tollhouse, according to the Michigan Historical Center Website, was originally located at 564 North Hagadorn Road in Okemos, MI, but had been moved to Wonch Park, which was also in Okemos. When I went to go see it, it was not there, but instead had been moved from its original location to Meridian Historical Village. That the Michigan Historical Center did not know or did not have the correct location of one of Michigan's historic buildings, I find rather disconcerting.

Meridian Historical Village is a collection of older buildings from the area that have all been moved to this park so that visitors can see them all together. On one hand, this seems like a wonderful on-taking, creating a park where people can go to learn about history, on the other hand, it robs each of these historical buildings of their context. Personally, I find myself torn over whether or not this trad off is worth it.I have always loved going to such historic sites like Greenfield Village, Colonial Michilimackinac, and Colonial Williamsburg, but I also think that there is something extremely special about historic buildings remaining where they were build like Meadowbrook Hall or the Turner-Dodge House. 

One question to ask is who is going to see these buildings. Many of the historical parks have programs for schools to take students on field-trips in order to help the children to gain a vague idea of what life was like "way back when." They also have family weekends where the whole family can get involved in learning about history. Many of the places still on their original spots do not appeal to such a wide audience. Some have been converted into offices or private homes and no attempt is being made for their historical merit to be presented to any audience except that of the owners. Other historical landmarks may be recognized as historical in passing, but no one ever learns their stories or their significance. On the MSU campus, for example, there are any number of historical buildings, but few if any of the students could tell you anything more about them than that they are in fact old.

In Kyvig and Marty's book, they discuss the significance of local history being in connecting the history of a particular person, family, object, building, or place to the wider history of the time. How is a specific family representative of the trends of the times? What does an old Victorian mansion tell us about the way people lived, the class system, and the architecture style in a particular region? These are the types of questions we are trying to be able to answer in saving historic buildings and monuments. The question is how best can we do this?

Personal History and Family Heritage through Song

Many peoples' earliest connections with the past come from hearing the stories told by parents and grandparents. The history that they start with is in many ways far more heritage than history. There is usually a sense of family connection or pride that accompanies these stories. Just as in the song "Something to be Proud of," many parents and grandparents use stories about their pasts and the past in general to help explain how their children and grandchildren should live their lives.

Something to Be Proud of  by Montgomery Gentry Lyrics

There's a story that my daddy tells religiously

Like clockwork every time he sees an opening

In a conversation about the way things used to be

Well I'd just roll my eyes and make a bee-line for the door

But I'd always wind up starry-eyed, cross-legged on the floor

Hanging on to every word

Man, the things I heard

It was harder times and longer days

Five miles to school, uphill both ways

We were cane switch raised, and dirt floor poor

'Course that was back before the war

Yeah, your uncle and I made quite a pair

Flying F-15's through hostile air

He went down but they missed me by a hair

He'd always stop right there and say...

That's something to be proud of

That's a life you can hang your hat on

That's a chin held high as the tears fall down

A gut sucked in, a chest stuck out

Like a small town flag a-flyin'

Or a newborn baby cryin'

In the arms of the woman that you love

That's something to be proud of

 

These early experiences often lead people to a deep connection with their heritages, but those who experienced past events have even stronger attachments to the past. To these individuals, these events and stories are far more than historical occurrences, they are the stories that make up their lives.

A song that truly reflects this is called "In Color" by Jamie Johnson. In the song, a grandfather is trying to explain to his grandson different events in his life through a few black and white photographs. He is frustrated because of all that the pictures leave out from the stories. There is a really powerful line in the song where he says "That's the story of my life/ right here in black and white."

In Color by Jamey Johnson Lyrics

I said, Grandpa what’s this picture here
It’s all black and white and ain’t real clear
Is that you there, he said, yeah I was eleven

Times were tough back in thirty-five

That’s me and Uncle Joe just tryin’ to survive

A cotton farm in the Great Depression

And if it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other

You should have seen it in color

This one here was taken overseas

In the middle of hell in nineteen forty-three

In the winter time you can almost see my breath

That was my tail gunner ole’ Johnny McGee

He was a high school teacher from New Orleans

And he had my back right through the day we left

And if it looks like we were scared to death

Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other

You should have seen it in color

A picture’s worth a thousand words

But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered

You should have seen it in color

This one is my favorite one

This is me and grandma in the summer sun

All dressed up the day we said our vows

You can’t tell it here but it was hot that June

That rose was red and her eyes were blue

And just look at that smile I was so proud

That’s the story of my life

Right there in black and white

And if it looks like we were scared to death

Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other

You should have seen it in color

A picture’s worth a thousand words

But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered

You should have seen it in color

You should have seen it in color

In spite of the fact that this may not be a true story, it does reflect the feelings of many people who believe that those who never experienced these events are leaving such important things out when they tell it. These events are not merely dates on a timeline, but things that happened to them; not random faces, but their beloved friends and family; not obscure places, but familiar haunts from times gone by. These people are irrevocably attached to the history that they lived through.

I can only imagine a historian getting his or her hands on the photographs discussed in the song. What would a historian write about these pictures in a book, as a slide in a lecture, or as part of a museum exhibit? History deals with being impartial, with critical inquiry, but at the same time we, as historians must never forget that when we tell history we are telling the stories of living, breathing people who have deserve our respect and acknowledgement.

History and Heritage

In his book The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, David Lowenthal describes the differences between history (defined as critical inquiry into the past) and heritage (defined as the use of the past to support a certain conclusion) and challenges that are faced by both. Lowenthal explains that the popularity of heritage has grown exponentially in recent years: "Memorials and monuments multiply, cities and scenes are restored, historic exploits are reenacted, flea-market kitsch is elevated into antiques. Retro-fashion rages and camcorders memorialize yesterday. Historic sites multiply from thousands to millions; 95 percent of existing museums postdate the Second World War" (Lowenthal 3).

Lowenthal goes on to describe how different individuals, families, communities, regions, and countries as well as ethnic, political, and religious groups use history as a way to find identity or belonging, to justify past or current actions, or to support their position on a current issue. With heritage, people are looking to find certain things and usually succeed. Often what is most significant is not was is said but, instead, what is left out.

In the past, most heritage issues had to deal with the elites of society, often emphasizing their glorious lineages, but today, heritage has become important to the populous. People now want to go to museums about how the common people lived, the small cottage where a country farmer lived, the factory where hundreds of workers eked out a living, etc.

With so many people fighting over heritage, it beg the question of who possesses this heritage. Does a man have the right to hold on to his grandfather's diary of World War II, when there are others who wish to know more about it? Should the nobility still in possession of their English country homes be allowed to keep them private when the English people believe such houses to be a part of their national heritage? Do U.S. museums have the right to hold on to Native American artifacts that many tribes want back? Since heritage deals with people possessing parts of the past, questions like these become huge issues for museums and heritage sites.

Another interesting thing that Lownethal points out is his book is how peoples' admiration of the past causes that past to be damaged or altered. Lowenthal explains how the hoards of people who take pictures of the great works of art in museums cause the paintings to diminish over time, how the steps of castles are worn down by the numerous tourists who come to visit.

Worn Staircase at the Chateau d'Amboise

This is also true of cultures. Admirers of cultures and cultural histories flock to experience them and in their flocking, the original culture and history become scarce. This summer I spent eight weeks in Tours, a beautiful French city of about 200,000 on the Loire River. Besides having a international institute for teaching French, which could not have had more that several hundred students, there were no tourists, no tourist shops, no English spoken.

The only hints of globalization were the few chain restaurants (probably no more than 10 or 20 in the entire city) and Galeries Lafayette, a French department store chain. It was wonderful! I had the chance to speak French with real French people, to see how they really lived, to shop in all of the small boutiques that lined the streets, to walk through Place Plumereau, a medieval square with restaurants on the ground floor and apartments above, to pass by some the ruins of an ancient monument that had been destroyed during World War II.  

Tour de Charlemagne

When I was able to spend a weekend in Paris, it was something of a disappointment. Paris was mainly full of non-French tourists. Even those who were French had learned to speak English to tourists. There was even a Burger King on the Champs Elysees. The culture of what I was able to see of the city was all over-run by tourists. One could observe French culture immortalized in paintings and buildings, but the living, people aspect of the French culture was hard to be found.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

My weekend in London was even worse. I planed my trip looking forward to hearing all of those wonderful English accents that Americans love so much, but I hardly heard any. The staff at the hotel and the tourist shops were all recent immigrants, hardly speaking English, little lone the that of the Queen.

Sacre Coeur de Monmartre