Motorization of American Cities

Doesn't that title sound promising? This process of motorization, with the grand expansion of American roadways stemming from and contributing to the spread of automobile ownership, is very much the taproot of the I-496 project. However, this book is less a narrative of the spread of highways (which would have been very helpful) than an attempted expose' of automakers lobbying for more urban highways and less electric streetcars in public transit. As the author, David St. Clair mentions, this isn't necessarily the result of nefarious intentions on the part of General Motors; selling more cars is the natural goal of any automobile manufacturer.
Some things that I think might be helpful: Did any of the Big Three's pet lobbying agencies get involved in the construction of I-496?
Also, this book includes a little background on many federal highway laws which we may find useful.
I should mention, though, that the reviews in various academic journals were generally not favorable.

Well Read Authors Give the Reader a Headache

I wish I would have read something like Nearby History before writing all of those History research papers. My poor note-taking probably made my work much more difficult, evidenced by my looking up every note back in the original text before putting it in the paper. Outdated as some of it is, this is nevertheless a very well-reasoned look at research and writing.

As for "Linking the Past to the Universal," the final chapter of the book, I wasn't as impressed. I felt like I was reading lists of books that the authors have read which exemplify the linking of the past to the universal, but they don't very clearly tell the reader how to do it (unless I missed something.) I guess the whole relationship of personal life to community, and that of community to national history is a good concept to work from, but I was still left not really sure how to do it.

Some thoughts on the curious nature of soldiers supporting war.

I was watching Scrubs the other day, and one episode, "His Story IV," reminded me of the Enola Gay stuff we were talking about. I know that we've moved on to Urban Development issues now, but I'll get back to addressing that later this week. In the episode, there was a wounded soldier being treated at the hospital and the nurses and doctors got in a huge argument about whether they supported the war in Iraq, which divided the hospital. What was so interesting was that one of the nurses, Laverne, has a nephew in the marines fighting in Iraq. Obviously, the pro-war contingent rallied around Laverne's nephew.
Why is it that people who know or are related to soldiers seem to automatically support the war? And get so upset when other people argue against it? It seems to me that people with loved ones in the line of fire would be among the first to want the war to end. But that's not how it works.
Instead, people who are always worried about their relatives or friends off fighting in Iraq don't want their potential sacrifice to be meaningless. They can't stand the thought of their beloved nephews fighting a misguided, questionable war, because that takes away the heroic nature of their service.
The same happened with the Enola Gay. The soldiers who dropped the bomb privately struggled with the enormous deathtoll that their mission caused, but for some reason, rather than being reflective about the situation and simply blaming their superiors (who made the decision to drop the bomb) for any wrongdoing, they cannot STAND the thought that their service in the war was immoral or that their role was in fact anything less than heroic.
I think it's a shame that those who are the most hurt by war are the ones who fight hardest in its defense. Just because you flew planes in the war doesn't mean you can't be reflective about the war! Will all of the Iraq veterans be so resistant to reflection as well? Will they argue in favor of Abu Ghraib, just because wrongdoing there would in some way tarnish them?

Unpublished sources.

According to the "Unpublished Documents" chapter of Kyvig and Marty's Nearby History, (mentioned in my last post,) there are over 4 billion pieces of paper in the United States National Archives.
Any archives we'll be searching through won't have quite such an abundance, but it does put into perspective the almost nonsensical amount of documentation people (and especially the government) have left behind.
A look at the U.S. Census records is probably in order, since we're dealing with the displacement of a large number of people in the path of I-496. Demographic information of all sorts can be gained by wading through these records, however unenviable a task it may be.
I actually used the MSU archives once. I was writing a paper for a US history class and I was thinking of using some personal letters that showed up in an MSU library. What I found (after filling out a form and donning some white gloves) was almost illegible, totally unusable for a 10 page undergraduate research paper, and ultimately I was embarrassed at wasting the archivists' time in retrieving it for me. (For the record they were very nice and helpful.) I'll bet some people in our class (maybe even I) will be going in their in search of other records before March is over.

A Historic "Shrine"

I decided to pay a visit to the Masonic Temple in Lansing. Built (I guess) in 1901 by the "prominent" masonic community of Lansing, it a beautiful Neo-Classical Revival building with nice columns flanking the entrance on the facade. It was purchased by Cooley Law School in 1974, and the inside was gutted (with the exception of the lobby) to turn large halls into classrooms and offices. Also, the south side of the building was amended with a large mural depicting (I assume) the namesake Mr. Cooley and others.

Despite being a registered Historical Site, there was absolutely no information about it at the site. I walked in and talked to the receptionist, but there was no plaque to be found and no insight into the history of the building. It is now a part of the law school, and so the only historical significance appears to be the architecture. That doesn't seem to be very significant to me at all.

Beginning my journey in Local History

I read the first three chapters of Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You. Our old friend Robert Kelley popped up once again, so we know that Kyvig and Marty have at least some grounding in modern, disciplinary Public History. Nearby History read like a how-to book on researching local history, and I think especially that the lists of questions in "What Can Be Done Nearby?" will be a very nice tool to reference as we begin our research on Interstate 496.
(I found on Wikipedia they mention an ironic situation concerning the namesake of the highway, R.E. Olds. Apparently the highway is named for him, and yet his house, which was on the National Register of Historic Places, was destroyed to make way for it. The citation looks legitimate, although I was unable to corroborate it on the NRHC website, probably because the house has been destroyed nearly half a century.)
This will be a very different than my sixty-some pages of history written last semester, about a group of people I never got to meet in a country across the ocean. This feels so much more alive already, and we haven't interviewed a single person yet!Matthew Miller's Article for the Lansing State Journal is an obvious place to start our research. I read this and was impressed by the "traces" he found in his research. I look forward to finding out more about his sources. I see a lot of interviewing, but as a historian I wonder: How much corroborating did he do? Probably more than is obvious (where do you document such things in a newspaper article?) but I wonder what other directions we're going to have to go in in order to give this issue a full historical examination. Trust, but verify!

Other things I'm wondering about:
What were the other location options considered for the new highway?
How was public transportation affected by this new road?
*What did Matt Miller know about but omit from his article?*

Jobs for historians?!

Ridiculous, you say? I was encouraged by the concept, although Robert Kelley's "Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects" is now over thirty years. old. A quick jump to Google reminded me that this was the same Robert Kelley who quite nearly founded Public History as a separate sub-discipline, and has a Public History memorial scholarship in his name at UC Santa Barbara where he created his Public History graduate program back in the 1970's. So this paper presents the thoughts of academic Public History's father in its early years. He himself defines Public History as a nonacademic field, where the questions are asked by others and the research does not occur in Universities, and he was spreading this from his graduate school at a University.
Now, I realize it's a false contradiction. After all, Public History in Kelley's view has existed all along, but Kelley was among the first to formalize training for this unique application of the historical craft. Also, according to Ian Tyrell in Historians in Public, Public Historians largely used to be interested amateurs, associated with local and state historical societies rather than Ph.D.'s. Kelley may have been on to something when he decided that these Public Historians could be more formally trained, prepared for the specific task ahead of them.
I love the concept. The skills of a historian are needed everywhere; in companies, in government, to give a more reflective perspective on the past and better inform decisions for the future. I wonder, though, how successful these "fabian" efforts of change concerning the historical profession have been? I don't know of any historians working for Dow Chemical in Midland (where I'm from) which may be a reason for their incredibly short-sighted decisions of late. Are there Ph.D.'s working in Lansing, in the historical district or elsewhere? I don't know where all these Public Historians from UC Santa Barbara went, unless they simply created Public History programs at other Universities, which is completely contrary to the spirit of the discipline.

Washington Public Schools and History

I was interested in looking at the state standards for History Curricula in the state of Washington because I am related to a few teachers there. It's also my favorite state that I've ever visited and a place I'd like to eventually live (although I'm pretty flexible, really.)

As with the Michigan Department of Education's website, it is a confusing and illogically constructed website. I had to search a little for the standards since the link on the American Epic website no longer works, and I found that the standards were very broad in a general sense:
1.Understands historical chronology.
2.Understands and analyzes causal factors that have shaped major events in history.
3.Understands that there are multiple perspectives and interpretations of historical events.
4.Uses history to understand the present and plan for the future.
Then for each grade level (I looked at 11th, for no particular reason) it outlines the specifics of these four requirements. In the case of the chronology students are expected to understand in 11th grade, it seems to be American History from the revolution to the recent past. As one would expect, the Causal Factors that need analysis are ones related to this period of American History.

Considering these four broad categories (and still fairly broad requirements therein) it seems like, judging by only this that teachers in Washington have a fair amount of flexibility in teaching History. These are certainly not the detailed lesson plans that might plague other states.

These four also seem to be a fairly sound approach to History from a disciplinary perspective, at least for High School level students. Chronology is important, but Washington's Board of Education also values analysis and using multiple perspectives, not simply the "Best Story" approach to History education that often leads to a more Heritage-centered curriculum. If Washington teachers really do have the students investigate history in the way that these standards suggest, it seems that Washington may be ahead of the curve.