This week we read The Lowell Experiment by Cathy Stanton.
This book is part public history, and part ethnography. Stanton was trained as
a cultural anthropologist, and it really shone through with her use of theories
of ritual, performance and traditionalism by seminal anthropologists such as Victor
Turner, Dean MacCannell, Evans-Pritchard, Urry, and Nelson Graburn. To learn more about Turner's groundbreaking research on ritual process, symbolism and communitas, click HERE. As an anthropology major, I had a specialized interest in the anthropology
of heritage and tourism, so I read countless works by the
anthropologists listed above, and I even got to speak with Nelson Graburn and
Edith Turner (Victor's wife and an anthropologist in her own right) at the 2014
AAA (American Anthropological Association) Annual Conference in Washington D.C.! Stanton's use of ethnographic theory pulled together a brilliant case study about the
role of public history in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell began as an
experimental model of a city during the Industrial Revolution. The rangers at
the Lowell National Historical Park (NHP) refer Lowell as going through a
linear transition that many cities go through: industrialization,
deindustrialization, then revitalization. Lowell was a city built on canals and
mill water-power, and the textile industry. Around the 1920s, the city was deindustrialized
when the factories moved south. This left a postindustrial
city with little industry, but many immigrants. Since the 1970s, Lowell has been working on
the second Lowell experiment; one in which the city aims to become a model city
again; but this time a model for the revitalization of postindustrial cities through
historic preservation.
Stanton used visitor surveys, interviews, and event had informants: the
classic tools of an anthropologist. Stanton looks at three tours given at the
Lowell National Historical Park (a mill tour, a neighborhood tour, and an
economic development tour), and analyzes them to see how great the "model
city" really is. By looking at these tours through the eyes of an anthropologist
who is very interested in public history, I was able to find things about the
Lowell NHP that are working, and things that definitely are not. The point of
this book though is to show that the problems faced by the Lowell NHP are also
faced by historic sites all over America. These are common problems that public
historians everywhere are trying to solve through education, public outreach,
and new programming. The problems that stuck out to me are: 1. the linear
pattern of Lowell's "progress" that the rangers present on tours, 2. the
discomfort surrounding the tour of the Acre neighborhood, the poorest
neighborhood in Lowell, and 3. the lack of transparency when dealing with the
economic development of the city in recent years.
1. The rangers at the NHP present time at the park in a
linear pattern. This is showing progress and improved conditions in industry,
while ignoring the problems that are
happening in industry today. This further disconnects the past and the present,
which is the opposite of what I would want to do as a public historian. Having
the narrative of the "Mill Girls" is great because they show the best
and worst parts of industrial labor (yay women can work! boo their working
conditions were unacceptably horrid!) and they are also ideal because these
women are anonymous. The women were basically kicked out of the mills once
cheaper labor from immigrants became available, so many of them went back to
the farms and surrounding towns that they came from. However, presenting the
story of the immigrant workers becomes more difficult because, though it is
true that women don't have to work in sweat shops anymore in America, many
women all over the world still do. According to MacCannell, presenting tourists
with that ugly reality is incompatible with the "tourist experience".
Breaking them away from the "imaginary" of Lowell as a progressive
place, and instead telling the story of laboring women in developing countries
would kind of shake them out of their happy liminal space within the tourist
destination.
This brings me into my next point: 2. Because there are still
immigrant groups living in Lowell and living below the poverty line, it is
messy to showcase Lowell as a sort of utopian progressive city that moved past
the worst parts capitalism. Many descendents of the original immigrant workers,
as well as newer groups of immigrants, live in the poorest neighborhood in
Lowell known as the Acre. Tours of the Acre are uncomfortable for the white,
middle class tour guides to present. Rather than talk about the struggles of
this neighborhood, the guides maintain a mantra of "keep it positive"
throughout their tour, pretty much at all costs. This brings to mind the idea
of transparency and authenticity. Which is more important to the visitor: the
blunt facts of transparency, or the imagined authenticity of a historic site,
preserved for all time?
3. The third issue I found is the lack of transparency
when dealing with the economic development of the city in recent years. The
third tour Stanton analyzes is one named: Historic Preservation as Economic
Development. This tour is usually on a smaller scale, in which developers take
tourists through the city and point out different successful revitalization
projects, and plans for future economic development projects. These projects
attempt to bring new businesses into the city, while preserving the historic
charm of the old buildings, canals and streets. This is a problem because it
ignores actual problem of poverty in the city by buying up and building over
it. The "rags to riches" story that these people aim to tell is not
transparent or honest.. the "rebirth" of Lowell has not solved the
problems of poverty, high unemployment, or economic vulnerability that has been
around for the lifetime of the city.
These sensitive issues plague all historic sites. Historical sites
aim to educate public, but they cannot address many sensitive issues without pushing that public away. There is a delicate balance to presenting the
issues of a historic site honestly, but still celebrating the history of that
place. These issues are also present at the Powel House, and the President's
House in Philadelphia; which we will visit as a class this week! How do we present
the founders of our country as slave-owners, while still celebrating their
accomplishments? The National Park Service's website attempts to present this issue in a simplified way HERE. But can this delicate work be done on a larger and more in depth scale...in the same
site at the same time? I definitely
do not have the answers to these types of questions right now, but I'm hoping
after more experience in the field, I'll be better prepared to face these
issues head-on.
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| Above: My classmates/friends and I with Nelson Graburn at the 2014 AAA Meeting. This was one of the best nights of my life!!!! |
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| Above: Our infamous meeting with Edith Turner |
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