Volume 16, 2006 (PDF)
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Editor‘s Note As the editor for this year‘s Chico Historian, I want to take this opportunity to thank the many people whose hard work made this volume possible. As a novice editor, I would have been absolutely helpless without the help of Frances Morrow who did the lions share of the editing. She was also the only person on the editorial board with any editing experience and her knowledge of the process along with many, many hours of her time, propelled this work to completion. I also want to thank Michael Simonovich who not only submitted a paper but also took time to read and edit many of the included articles. I personally owe Dr. Judith Raftery a debt of gratitude for offering me the opportunity to serve as editor and partake in this valuable learning experience. Dr. Stephen Lewis, who actively serves as Phi Alpha Theta advisor, was instrumental in soliciting papers. I also want to thank Dr. Carl Peterson and his wife Mary for the grant that helps fund our printing. We would all be lost without the help and guidance of our department secretary, Claudia Beaty, none of us can thank her enough. Most importantly, I am grateful to all the students who took the time to compose and submit papers. We received many excellent submissions, the best of which fill this volume. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have. Trevor Haagenson 1 The Chico Historian Volume 16 2006 Editors Trevor Haagenson & Frances Morrow Editorial Board Michael Simonovich Michael Collins Anna Funk Faculty Advisors Chico Historian Dr. Judith Raftery Phi Alpha Theta Dr. Stephen Lewis Published by the Alpha Delta Omicron Chapter PHI ALPA THETA Department of History California State University, Chico 2 Table of Contents Women and the Pursuit of History 4 Robyn M. Hafer "The Faraway Land Nearby": Mexico, Tourism, and the State, 1939-1968? 16 Patrick O‘Connor The Significance of the Taming of California Water 35 Michael Simonovich The Separate South: A Study of the Central Theme in Southern History, 1607-1850 42 Joshua Harmon Print Culture: A Study of the Royal Society of London, 49 the Philosophical Transactions, and the Printing Press. Philip W. Clements The Problematic Historian: 60 Quintus Curtius on Alexander the Great and his World Bryce Havens More than Music: 66 American Hardcore, Punk’s Forgotten Movement, 1979-1985 Drew Traulsen The Fictional Conquest of the Air: Early British and French 83 Aviation and the Popular Imagination, 1909-1914; Chapter Three Michael Collins From Convert to Compulsory: 90 Comparing the Physical Attributes of Early English Translations of the Bible. Misha Mazzini Griffith 3 Women and the Pursuit of History Robyn M. Hafer Within the chronologies of wars and the biographies of great leaders and civilizations, it is difficult to hide the fact that women are barely a footnote in traditional histories, whether as objects of historical study or as writers contributing to the historical narrative. Are women less important to the telling of these stories and have, therefore, been relegated to minor roles? Are female historians simply disinterested in writing these types of histories, thereby ensuring they remain in obscurity? Are men more capable of writing history than women? Who controls the historiographical record that allows some historians in while shutting others out? Bonnie Smith takes on these questions and more in her provocative study, The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice. Smith‘s analysis provides a much needed perspective concerning the rise of female historians in an unquestionably male-dominated profession over the past 200 years. Her examination, which focuses primarily on the late 18th to early 20th centuries, contrasts the historical works of early female historians of the 18th and 19th centuries with the rise of professional history that occurred during the same time period. Furthermore, she looks at how these two worlds of history were deliberately kept separate from one another and how this separation clashed with the ideology of the Enlightenment, which influenced all men and women at the time. Finally, she shows the ways women began challenging the ―professional‖ field of history and reveals the, often, self-imposed obstacles these women faced as they attempted to be recognized as equals in a field that was not built to accommodate both sexes. To demonstrate the importance of her groundbreaking study, we must first look at Smith‘s thesis, particularly the methods she employs and the ground she covers. By examining her organization of material and sources, we can better understand why Smith‘s examination of this topic represents a new understanding of both historiography and female scholarship within the historical record. However, to focus solely on Smith would present a one-sided view of a multi-faceted subject. Therefore it is important to examine some critical responses to her book as well as other perspectives and problems the field of ―feminist‖ history presents. Only after we examine both sides of this controversial topic, can we look at where women fit into the broader expanse of historiography, ranging from Herodotus and Thucydides to Ambrose and Zinn. Whether recognized or not, women have always had a place in history both as subjects and writers of history. Smith‘s thesis centers on the ―amateur‖ and the ―professional‖ historian and how, from the beginning, the former was, and still is, subordinate to the latter. More importantly, the rise of the professional study of history was ―closely tied to evolving definitions of masculinity and femininity.‖1 Both the amateur and the professional found themselves competing against each other, which only served to polarize the two further. Women found themselves on the losing end of this competition as their works were deemed ―low‖ history and, thus, discredited. 1 Bonnie Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 1. 4 Conversely, these ―low‖ histories were oftentimes best sellers in the marketplace, which led to a further defining of professional standards amongst the amateurs. While the term amateur has an immediate negative connotation, Smith argues that what is considered amateur was, in reality, market-driven works that dealt with the cultural and societal aspects of everyday living.2 More importantly, these works encompassed a wide range of subjects that provided a counter narrative to traditional historical topics. While the recording of great men and their great deeds was used to show progress, the work of female historians, specifically in the form of social and cultural narratives, questioned that progress by showing the effect these great men and deeds wrought on society as a whole. Germaine de Stael serves as Smith‘s prototype ―amateur‖ historian. A self-proclaimed genius, de Stael was a survivor of the French Revolution, a drug addict, and a highly erotic person. His histories became the inspiration for generations of female historians. Smith argues that de Stael deserves a place in Western historiography not only because she is the first female historian to emerge in the 19th century but also because her histories embody the issues and trajectories subsequent female writers would encounter. Excessively rich,, and living most of her life in exile, de Stael viewed the turbulent post-Revolutionary war through a cultural rather than a political lens. Furthermore, her writings, based on extensive travel and cultural observations, are reminiscent of Polybius; moreover, her skilled use of rhetoric aligns her with Roman historians of antiquity. While de Stael decries anyone who mimics either the Greeks or Romans, her histories are inextricably linked to these traditions. The historical novel for which she is most famous, Corrine, uses tensions between the sexes and their differing viewpoints as a tool to show multiple interpretations, and as a foreshadowing of the development of male/female interpretations of history and the dominant patterns that would emerge as a result. The heroine of Corrine is traveling with her male companion, Oswald, through Italy. As they survey different sites, the reader is presented with the more learned French woman‘s , Corrine, view versus the less learned Englishman‘s, Oswald, view simultaneously encompasses the gender, national, and cultural viewpoints on any given topic.3 This approach to history became a distinguishing characteristic in the amateur genre. According to Smith, the concept of trauma, and the subsequent working out of this in one‘s writing, is integral to the amateur‘s historical works. Trauma, by Smith‘s definition, is not meant to ―invoke feelings of dismay over victimhood but to suggest a situation, a social, cultural, and political location, from which women wrote.‖4 The personal lives of these amateurs were far from the wealth and privilege of de Stael. Most amateur women were living outside the norm for the time period; although firmly located in the middle class, they were the sole source of income for their families and wrote in addition to their required domestic duties. Book publishers exploited these authors‘ social and legal disabilities, making them work twice as hard for less pay. Some women took advantage of their lessened social status and engaged in highly visible affairs, conceived children out of wedlock, and generally ―professed to be estranged from the ideals of nineteenth-century womanhood prescribed by the code of middle-class conduct.‖5 Writers such as Sarah Taylor Austin, Lydia Maria Child, and Harriet Grote, among others, were known 2 Smith, 43. 3 Smith, 29-30. 4 Smith, 38. 5 Smith, 48. 5 for their refusal to fit within societal norms; thus, giving them an outsider‘s perspective on the world in which they wrote. The amateur historian Sarah Taylor Austin wrote ―Society is so much the province of women that it seems as if they were the natural and proper historians.‖6 As Smith points out this is one of three inclinations female historians wrote about that distinguishes their writing in the historical record.