Post #12

Water and the West
Reading

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner

This weeks reading did an excellent job at openening up the eyes of the historian to the significance of water in the history of the American West. As Reisner takes the reader down the rivers of the West with John Wesley Powell and eventually takes the reader up to the dams that sought to control those rivers, the true significance of water upon the settlement and development of the West becomes very evident. I have to agree, in part, with the editors description of this work as "a stunning expose and dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--and Eden that may be only a mirage." Unfortunately, the way in which the author frames his work and his use of historical method give this book a strong leaning in the expose camp.

The way in which the author sets up his study in the introduction makes this assessment fairly clear. From the introduction the reader very quickly gets a sense that this is more than an historical study. It is intended to provide the context for a current debate. For example, Reisner writes, "Perhaps, the despite fifty thousand major dams we have built in Merica; despite the fact that federal irrigation has, for the most part, been a horribly bad investment in free-market terms; despite the fact that the number of free-flowing rivers that remain in the West can be counted on two hands; perhaps, despite all of this, the grand adventure of playing God with our waters will go on." (Reisner 14) This statement seems to hold fairly clear message that the author is trying to find an answer to a current issue by looking at the historical record. The question the arises, is this a work of presentism or a sound historical analysis of a long running issue in the history of the West?

I should take a moment to comment on this approach. I believe that we would all agree that the use of history to enlighten our understanding of the present is clearly one of the reasons why the study of history is vitally important. The question is whether the author's purpose here is to let the past speak or to simply expose historical precedents that support his argument. There is a very fine, but significant, line here.

In this work, I believe that the author is attempting to stay within a sound historical approach. I also believe that he falls into a few historiographical pitfalls that weaken his historical foundation. First, Reisner tends to use language that leans towards the dramatic. The previous quote is one example, "the grand adventure of playing God with our waters..." (Reisner 14). He also makes comments such as, "the Apache and Comanche, soon evolved into the best horsemen who ever lived..." (Reisner 17). Such comments make for interesting reading but are slightly out of place in an historical work. Perhaps my analysis of his writing style was tainted by these early comments, but the presence of such dramatic exaggerations is made significantly more problematic when one considers Reisner's complete lack of citation.

Reisner does an acceptable job of putting together a bibliography in which he explains his general use of sources for each chapter. However, the lack of any internal citation pointing directly to the source of his supporting evidence significantly undermines the historical foundation of this work. Such a lack of clear citation should cause any historian to take a deeper look at the foundation upon which the author is building his or her argument. Unfortunately, that task is made problematic by that same lack of citation.

The combination of these factors; the slight presentist leaning, the exaggerated writing style, and the lack of internal citation should cause the historian to pause. I do not think that we should dismiss the work entirely. As I mentioned before, it does an excellent job of exposing the significance of water on the development of the West. Furthermore, the author does write an interesting narrative of that development. I do suggest that we take into account the works historical shortcoming and take a cautious look at his work.

Post #11

Re-examining Roy Baker

Over the past week I have been striving to locate and identify pictoral evidence that is relevant to Fort D.A. Russell, Cheyenne, and the Roy Baker case itself. I must confess that uncovering photographs dealing with this material has been particularly challenging. But I have made some progress thus far.

I have searched the online catalogs of the National Archives (NARA) and the Library of Congress extensively in hopes of finding a relevant collection. NARA has an large collection of digital images of Fort D.A. Russell. Unfortunatly, those images are from the fort during the World War I era. The most promising find I have discovered at NARA is a collection entitled, "Personnel and Activities of Infantry Units, 1850-1941". This collection contains, "portraits and other prints of officers and enlisted men of the 10th, 15th, 17th, and 19th Infantry." Due to scheduling conflicts, I was unable to make the trip to College Park this week, but I intend to make the trip tomorrow in hopes of searching this and other collections at NARA.

I discovered a map in the Library of Congress' collection that might prove to be useful for some. This is a map entitled, "Bird's Eye View of Cheyenne, Wyo. county seat of Laramie Co. 1882" by Beck and Pauli lithographers. Even though this arial view predates our study it might still prove somewhat useful.

I also searched the Perry Casteneda Map Collection at the University of Texas Austin. This site has been very helpful for me in past research. It provides a large number of digital copies of hisotrical maps. However, in this case there were no maps that were particularly relevant. There are some very interesting historical maps on this sight, including a few maps dealing with Western expansion that may prove to be useful to some of you in the future.

I have also searched for other photographic evidence on online databases. I have made a few interesting finds. It must be noted though that I am very cautious in even listing these images. Online research for images can be a very dangerous thing for the historian so I will have to do much more backround research to confirm the accuracy of these images. The site titled Wyoming Tales and Trails has a number of images of Cheyenne and Fort D.A. Russell. Unfortunatley, the D.A. Russel images either deal with the early 20th Century or they are undated. There are a number of images of Cheyenne that are dated in the 1880's. However, given the title's inculsion of "tales", the lack of bibiographic information on the archives holding these images, and the lack of professional credentials of the individual who maintains the site, I am very hesitant to trust their accuracy.

Progress on my re-write is also coming along. I am interested to see what information in uncovered dealing with military life and discipline during this period. My paper largely focused upon this angle and the general breakdown of military order as a key factor that opened the door for the unfolding of events that led to the death of Roy Baker. It seemed as though there are a number of people delving into this information. Since this information will be so vital to my re-write (and since I do not desire to be a slug), I would be happy to assist anyone in this line of research as well if it is needed or desired.

Post #10

Political Activism and Historical Agency in the Historiography of the American West
Readings

Becoming Mexican American by George Sanchez
Indians In Unexpected Places by Philip DeLoria
"Still Native: The Significance of Native Americans in the History of the 20th Century American West" by David R. Lewis
"Significant to Whom?: Mexican Americans and the History of the American West"
by David G. Gutierrez

In this weeks readings, we were once again challenged with some of the same issues that we encountered when studying gender in the historical interpretation of the West. In particular, the issue of the historical agency of the minority is an issue that the historian must constantly wrestle with. After reading David Gutierrez's article, this issue and the varying ways in which historians confront it were brought to the forefront.

Gutierrez provides the reader with an excellent overview of the historiographical trends in Mexican American history. He argues that the real long-term legacy of conquest is not the domination of territory itself but the domination of the interpretation of the history of that conquest. He writes, "Ultimately, however, the most crucial development as a result of expansion and domination is the subsequent construction of elaborate sets of rationals which are designed to explain why one group has conquered another and to establish and perpetuate histories that help 'set...And enforce...Priorities, [repress] some subjects in the name of the greater importance of others, [naturalize] certain categories and [disqualify] others.''' (520) Clearly historical agency and the way in which the historian analyzes that agency are issues that are just as central to the historiographical debate on race as they were in the debate on gender. [In fact, Gutierrez pieces together this poorly organized quote from a work by Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History.]

While I agree that the agency of minorities must be incorporated into the historical debate when relevant, some of the historiographical initiatives designed to present that agency that Gutierrez highlights are questionable in my opinion. The red flag that caught my attention was the repeated connection of historian and activist. This correlation is clearly evident in his analysis of Mexican American historiography of George Sanchez (526), through the Chicano history movement (527), and into his analysis of historiography dealing with minority and gender history today(535).

The extent to which these two terms should be literally connected is a debate in and of itself. This forces the historian to wrestle with issues of objectivity and biases. I found it interesting that Gutierrez referred to Peter Novick's work, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession. In this work, Novik likens the quest for objectivity to one attempting to "nail jelly to the wall". Thus, I hesitate to take on this daunting issue yet again here. But unfortunately the question must be asked: does the inability to write purely objective history mean that the historian should quickly fall into the dangerous ground of tieing activism to historical analysis?

It is clearly impossible to avoid biases completely, the historian is human. Furthermore, I would not advocate a history that is completely void of interest on the part of the historian. That is the recipe for poorly written history. On the other hand, if the historian begins his or her analysis with an agenda rather than a research question, the evidence can very quickly begin to speak in unintended ways. Gutierrez makes it clear that this was the intent of many scholars attempted to bring new levels of agency to Mexican American historical actors.

I did not see this bias come out strongly, myself, when reading Sanchez's book. In fact, Gutierrez acknowledges that Sanchez, as a part of the first wave of historians struggling to provide a more clear picture of Mexican American history, was very intentional in maintaining the scholarly quality of his work (526).

I believe the line between the scholarly and political is crossed when one looks at Gutierrez's analysis of the Chicano history of the 1960'S and 1970's. Gutierrez acknowledges and then attempts to downplay the fact that, "the history produced during this period helped to create a different totalizing discourse that in some ways was as distorting, essentialistic, and exclusionary as the one activists were attempting to transform." (529) At that point, no matter how well intentioned the historian is in his or her analysis, that analysis has becomed blurred.

Again, it is not my intention to downplay the necessity of providing a more complete analysis of the impact of race and gender in the history of the American West. My concern begins when the agenda, and not the evidence, begins to speak. The historian must be passionate about unraveling the mysteries of the past, but at the point that the historian becomes and activist, that analysis can very quickly be limited and blinded by a political agenda.

Print the Legend Comments

I have posted comments on Ben's site and Audrey's site.

Post # 9

Snapshots of the Past
Reading

Print the Legend by Martha A Sandweiss

In this work, Martha Sandweiss tracks the development of the influence of photography upon the portrayal and imagination of the West. Sandweiss begins with an analysis of Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, which she argues were dismissed largely for their inability to portray the broader themes of the war that the public desired to be given, which were provided by other forms of graphic art such as drawings and lithographs. She goes on to trace the evolution of photography and the way in which it was adapted to attempt to tell those stories that it, by nature of its realism, was initially ill suited to tell. This was a well thought out work in which Sandweiss does an good job of providing evidence for her arguments.

However, I found the historiographical discussion on the use of photographs as primary sources to be particulalry interesting. First, Sandweiss establishes the limited ability of a photograph to go beyond a snapshot depiction of the past and establish a broader historical meaning. Secondly, she challenges historians to analyze photographs just as they would any other primary source. Sandweiss argues that photographs must be analyed IN history, not just for what they portray but also for why they portray the image presented. In that regard, the historian must not only take into account the image itself but also the intent of the photographer and any biases that might shade the view of his or her cameral lense. In other words, the historian must take his or her analysis throught the lens of the camera, through the eye of the photographer, into the mind of the photographer that was influenced by social understandings and biases. Sandweiss also calls for an examination of photographs THROUGH history (Sandweiss 9). In other words, the varying and shifting ways in which an image has been used throughout the past must also be analyzed.

After working extensively with photographic evidence in the development of a multimedia tour presentation for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Sandweiss' argument raises many issues that I had encountered personally. In that position, I quickly encountered the pitfall of the use of images as editors afterthoughts. In a museum, it is the artifact itself that is the primary story teller. My photograph research was intended to supplement the lessons and significance portrayed in the artifact itself and the curator's description. While I do not think this is as inherantly wrong as Sandweiss attemts to make it, it did raise a bigger problem. When images are looked upon as afterthoughts, they can quickly be taken out of context in order to portray the broader story a curator, producer, or historian is trying to tell. I believe this becomes particulalry challenging once a video producer, with more lax hisoriographical standards is introduced into the process. Sandweiss gives an excellent example of this when she discusses Ken Burns use of images in his series on the West (Snadweiss 329). I have also been challenged with this issue. In preparing the presentation on the museum's F-4 Phantom II, I encountered an image of a formation of F-4's flying in the foreground as an unseen bomber was dropping its payload in the background. Had this image been included in the presentation, as the producer desired, one would have come away with impression that the F-4, a fighter aircraft, was carrying a large bomb load. Though this may seem like an insignificant issue, it does point to the small factors that can quickly lead to historical mis-interpretation.

Thus, I believe Sandweiss gives us all an excellent reminder about the importance of taking into account the entire context of any primary source, whether it be an image or a diary. Her historiographical challenges can go a long way in guiding the historian away from the pitfalls of misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

Women and Gender in the American West: Comments

I have posted comments on Brian's Site and Carrie's Site.

Post # 8

Grand Theories in Western History

Reading
Women and Gender in the American West, edited by Mary Ann Irwin and James F. Brooks

In this weeks reading, we were once again confronted with another analytical framework from which to analyze the history of the West. As this week’s blog is late once again, and we have already looked at many issues in class, I would like to take some of the comments that were made and weave them into a larger analysis of western historiography.

Over the past few weeks we have been encountered with a number of books that have tried to present us with a uniform, and from the authors’ point of view unquestionable, theory as to how we should view Western history. Turner gave us the grand theory that has been the battleground over which western historiography has been fought ever since he published his thesis, the West as the frontier. Elliot West gave us the West as the land and the interactions that took place between this land and those abiding there. Last week, in Colony and Empire, Robbins gave us the West as the victim of capitalism. This week we were again confronted with a framework that attempts to re-define Western historiography in an overarching way. We were presented with the argument that the West was a land of complete diversity where gender and race collide and must be examined to have any understanding of the true nature of the West.

I believe that this week’s reading did raise very important questions about race and gender that must be tackled in the study of the West. However, as Dr. Petrik pointed out, the West is not as diverse as some of these writers attempt to portray it. It was mentioned in passing that this issue had been dealt with very briefly in one of the articles. Jensen and Miller took on this demographic issue in their article, “The Gentle Tamers Revisited”. After pointing to the gender disparity that persisted in states such as Wyoming (6 men to 1 woman) and even greater disparity in Idaho and Montana (8 to1), they write, “This great disparity by state indicates that a tendency still common in discussion of women in the West is to make a generalization based on an area or a time when males did predominate and then to exclude other areas and times as not typical of the West.” (cited in Irwin and Brooks 19) While Jensen and Miller are calling for a greater attention to those areas where women were more represented in society, it is vital that historians not take this step too far in the opposite direction. Many of the articles in this reading seemed to go too far.

Antonia Castaneda took this extreme stance in her article, “Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History”. She calls for, “rewriting the nineteenth-century west.” Anytime an author calls for “rewriting” the history of any age, area, or field that should cause one to pause, not to dismiss entirely, but to turn up the analytical warning level one notch. It becomes clear that Castaneda is calling for a focus not just solely upon gender but upon racial gender as well. This is clearly an area of study that would open many historical insights into the history of the West. However, to take the extreme stance, which Castaneda seems to take, that history must be deconstructed so that the true history of women of color may reconstruct it, places undue significance upon a single, yet still vital, aspect of analysis in Western historiography (Irwin and Brooks 87).

Thus, we again come back to the question with which we began our journey into the west. What is the west and what analytical framework should the historian use to study it? As Dr. Petrik has pointed out, we must each eventually come to terms with this question. We must each define the west so that we may analyze it. However, I would suggest that the grand theories that we have encountered of the course of our study of the West cannot fully define the West. They each have contributions and each have shortcomings. Therefore, as historians, it is vital that we process these theories of the West into a more inclusive definition that allows is still defined enough to allow for meaningful analysis.

Sounds simple right? I know I am still trying to wrap my head around this. However, as I encounter the strengths and weaknesses of the grand theories, the puzzle is slowly starting to come together.