Piecing Together the Past

After a week of balmy summer, Nature today has carried us back to spring with a second wet morning in a row, this one cool enough for a jacket, though sweater and raincoat may be more appropriate. Yes, rain. Rain means a break from mowing grass — and also encourages the grass to grow all the more lushly. Everything is a double-edged sword.

Yesterday morning I came to the last page of Rachel May’s An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery, and today I feel challenged to get across to male readers, many of whom will have little or no interest in domestic arts (am I stereotyping?), that this is not just a “book about quilts.” It is much more. Though there is plenty of information about quilts and several other examples of quilts made in the early years of the Republic, for author May the 200-year-old quilt tops encountered in the book’s pages are pieces of material culture that first open the door to decades of American history in which she will subsequently immerse herself and her readers. What May pieces together in her book are lives. 

But here I want to go in another direction for a while, because May will be the best narrator of her own story and I don’t want to pre-empt anyone’s reading and listening of that. Also, my digression has a definite purpose, connected to May's book, so once again I ask you go come with me on a little detour.

Old books. Some people have no use for them, especially old history books, but for me the age of a book, the era in which it was written, is never a reason to pass by without opening the pages. “Outdated” is not a term I usually  recognize. Many of today’s perspectives will surely be discarded in the future, so why should we necessarily valorize them over other views, merely because they are current? For me, the calendar cannot be a yardstick for value. And just as some past views require correction in the present and will require additional correction in the future, surely other perspectives of the past may be resuscitated and one day seen as superior to what is commonly believed today. It has happened before, and it will happen again. 

The “old” book I picked up yesterday afternoon — actually, I initially picked it up months ago and have had it tucked away in the car for an occasion that finally arrived yesterday, an hour when I would be waiting in the car for the Artist and would need something to read — is a book of essays on the philosophy of history, essays gathered together and published in 1959. It is The Philosophy of History in Our Time: An Anthology, selected and edited by Hans Meyerhoff, and in the parking lot of the Suttons Bay library as afternoon segued into evening I had the opportunity to dip into the first essay in the collection to catch my eye, “The Historical Imagination,” by R. G. Collingwood. 

Revisionist history. There is another phrase used as one of depreciation and often uttered with a sneer. The common connotation, nurtured by many who consider themselves lovers — even practitioners — of history, is that to revise history is to falsify it. And of course intentional falsifications have occurred from time to time. But not every revision is a distortion. I would venture to say that most revisions are corrections and clarifications rather than distortions, and here Collingwood comes to my aid, as well as serving to bolster the work of Rachel May, which is the reason for my digression today. 

Collingwood begins by setting forth what he believes is most people’s first “commonsense” theory of history, in which the essential features are memory and authority. According to this view, an authority is someone with memory of an event, and subsequent historians remain true insofar as they rely on facts set forth by authorities. Collingwood challenges this view and insists on the historian’s autonomy, that he or she (for Collingwood, always “he,” but no matter) must always be his or her own authority. 

As natural science finds its proper method when the scientist, in Bacon’s metaphor, puts Nature to the question, tortures her by experiment in order to wring from her answers to his own questions, so history finds its proper method when the historical puts his authorities in the witness-box, and by cross-questioning extorts from them information which in their original statements they have withheld, either because they did not wish to give it or because they did not possess it. 

So much for authority, although I am not giving you every step or every example in Collingwood’s refutation. What about memory? Will that not be essential?

And as history does not depend on authority, so it does not depend upon memory. The historian can rediscover what has been completely forgotten. … He can even discover what, until he discovered it, no one ever knew to have happened at all. 

What, though, about facts? The question of facts, which seemed more or less settled to the commonsense imagination, has once again become contentious, and Collingwood insists that for the historian facts about the past are always contentious, that there are no “bare facts” that can serve as fixed points on which to pin a complete history. No authorities, no fixed points, no data. 

Another philosopher of history in the same old book, Carl Becker, addresses himself to the question of historical facts and takes as his example that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. What of it? he asks. Many people have crossed rivers, many even have undoubtedly crossed the Rubicon, and certainly in saying “Caesar” crossed it we mean that he did so with an army, and when we look at this “simple fact” closely, we see that thousands of other facts must have gone into it and have been left out of the story. Historians are always selecting and omitting.

Back to Collingwood:

All that the historian means, when he describes certain historical facts as his data, is that for the purposes of a particular piece of work there are certain historical problems relevant to that work which for the present he proposes to treat as settled; though, if they are settled, it is only because historical thinking has settled them in the past, and they remain settled only until he or some one else decides to reopen them. 

In the end, Collingwood comes to a coherence theory of historical truth. Any historian will be selecting among bits of evidence to construct a story, but that story cannot be “arbitrary or merely fanciful,” although it will be “essentially something imagined” in the gaps between what is known, and here the work of the imagination is structural, not merely ornamental. Like a novel, history but “make sense.” It must present a “continuous and coherent picture.” But unlike the novel, “the historian’s picture is meant to be true,” and this truth demands that the picture be localized in space and time; consistent with itself; and stand “in a peculiar relation to something called evidence.” Collingwood having rejected authorities and fixed points, i.e., bare facts, you will not be surprised to learn that his attitude toward evidence is not a simple one 

Everything is evidence which the historian can use as evidence. [Emphasis added]

I have italicized that sentence and left it standing alone because for me it shines light on Rachel May’s imaginative reconstruction of nineteenth-century lives, both black and white, beginning with an unfinished quilt. Collingwood goes on.

Everything is evidence which the historian can use as evidence. But what can he so use? I must be something here and now perceptible to him: this written page, this spoken utterance, this building, this finger-print. And of all the things perceptible to him there is not one which he might not conceivably use as evidence on some question, if he came to it with the right question in mind. 

I read: This quilt. This box of letters. These printed images. These houses and the much more simple buildings behind them. Historical markers in certain places, their absence in others. 

History is never finished, once and for all, writes Collingwood, but this is not an argument for skepticism.  History is a process, and the historian is part of that process. 

[E]very new generation must rewrite history in its own way; every new historian, not content with giving new answers to old questions, must revise the questions themselves….

And here is the heart of important revision, it seems to me. “Settled” history, that which we learn in grade school, answers a limited set of questions, but as we grow older we realize how many questions were never asked in those books. Could New Englanders have become so wealthy with their cotton mills if not for cheap raw material from the South, its very cheapness made possible only by the institution of slavery? What picture does the word “slave” bring to mind? How might it be possible to give a fuller picture not only of national economics in the nineteenth century but also of individual human lives? How can we possibly imagine what might have been going on in the minds of those who could see other human beings as property, in the minds of those who were considered little more than livestock or chattel? 

Much necessary historical revision is enlargement. It looks to answer questions that previous historians did not ask (or dismissed from consideration), and it looks to give voice to what has hitherto been kept silent. It is not suppression of truth but the bringing to light of more truth than had been made easily available before. 

What historical facts will you accept? What answers?  What stories? Each of us who reads history is a student of it, and the more we read and learn, the more critically we can assess what we read, by putting it in the witness-box of our own imaginations and cross-questioning it. 

Here’s why it matters. Another phrase from Collingwood stood out for me: 

Every present has a past of its own….

It is this truth, in part, that drives Rachel May’s investigations. Just as she asked about Southern slave-owners, how they could come to a comfortable acceptance of owning other human beings, so she also asks of our time, how did we come to be where we are today? What questions have we failed to ask ourselves? What are we not seeing, and whose voices are we not hearing, whether willfully or ignorantly?

Rachel May will be my first Thursday Evening Author, presenting her story of historical reconstruction at Dog Ears Books on June 21, beginning at 7 p.m. She is, I should add for the reassurance of crafters, a serious quilter herself and a student of historical patterns and methods of quilting, as well as a researcher of documents and places, so she will have something to offer every member of the audience, and I hope the audience for her presentation will be numerous.

Where the Past Never Dies

In a recent issue of the e-mail book world newsletter “Shelf Awareness,” the “Quotation of the Day” came from a bookseller opening a new shop on September 1, who said he thought of a bookstore as a “cultural anachronism.” He meant it (as one would have hoped) in the best possible way:

... A place where time itself seems to slow. People linger. Few are ever in much of a rush or put out by a line. We've all made a decision about what we value more than a discount.

  

Maybe this is what people really mean when they talk about their love of the smell of a bookstore. The anachronism of ink and pulp amidst the daily sterility of point and click.

If you are interested in more of what Brad had to say, follow this link.

My own experience (24+ years of running my own indie bookstore in northern Michigan) tells me that many people my age who deserted print books are coming back to them and, moreover, that much younger people, who grew up with electronics and take them for granted, are discovering physical books with wonder and awe. One lovely day near the end of summer three girls in their early teens were combing my shelves for the oldest books they could find that would fit their budgets. Their eager questions about copyright and printing dates or lack thereof led me to point out differences in paper quality, binding, and illustration. They could not have been more attentive. They purchased their treasures and came back in the afternoon for Round 2, eagerly shopping the past. A couple of weeks before that a young father had earnestly impressed on his child that “This book was published when Thomas Jefferson was alive!” Yes, he bought that book, too.

Some scholars and commentators have remarked, in loving, neutral, or derogatory language, depending on their own perspectives and purposes, on books as “fetish objects.” (Here is a sampling of articles—x, y, z—and you can easily find more yourself.) I would remind those who look down on our love for physical books that we ourselves are physical creatures, not immaterial angels but living, breathing animals, borne of earth, mortal, gravity-bound, and conscious of our ultimate earthly destiny, death. Is it any wonder, facing our own time limits, that we are fascinated by objects that predated our births and can easily live far beyond us? The added attraction of these artifacts, of course, is that they contain thoughts – dreams – ideas – memories – which means that human minds can outlive human bodies and speak beyond the grave to later generations.

Part of my life-long fascination with Modern Library books is their hand-friendly size, and there is something quite endearing about books that size or smaller to many book-lovers, so you can easily see how this tiny volume, printed in Glasgow in 1836, charms me for its size and its binding. The ninth edition of The National Minstrel: A Collection of Popular Songs, containing only lyrics, no music, you might expect as I did to find numerous copies available, but I found the work only in libraries. (All the photos in today's post are of this little book.) Doubtless because it was so common and widely printed and purchased, the little book was not considered valuable in its time and so was not carefully preserved. As with those once-ubiquitous Dick-and-Jane readers, however, its survival intact is what today gives value to The National Minstrel. Its rarity – and its charm.

Nature, Art, and Artifact

Last Sunday was what will have been my last Sunday away from the bookstore for the next two months. I used to begin my 7-day-a-week schedule with Memorial Day weekend, but June Sundays in Northport are quiet, (this was true even last year, when the post-Memorial Day dropoff in visitors did not occur, for the first time in my memory), and I decided I needed the time at home. Grass will not be growing as fast in July and August. 

Okay, decision taken. But on my last Sunday at home I didn’t stay home all day.

We had to attend the annual St. Wenceslaus rummage sale, for one thing, and I found several things I really needed – pint canning jars, wooden clothespins (one never has too many), and a nice, big laundry basket. I also bought five or six books, for us and for the shop. Then there were the indulgences – two (yes, two) cheese graters (sturdier than the ones I had at home), an irresistible set of four table napkins, and some other small item that escapes my mind at the moment. (Oh, a steamer basket.)

After the sale, we continued to Lake Leelanau for coffee and so I could pick up a bag of sugar at NJ’s. But then, home ... for lunch outdoors ... and to hang laundry on the line. I’d made a commitment, though, to attend the artist-in-residence lecture at 1:30 in Leland, so down the highway I went. Indoors. On a beautiful, sunny June Sunday. And I was glad to be there.

Holly Wren Spaulding is the first nonvisual artist to be awarded the artist-in-residency at Leland’s Old Art School since the program’s inception. My husband was the first artist-in-residence a decade ago, and most of those selected have been painters. But Holly Wren Spaulding is a poet. Words are her medium. Spaulding’s exhibit at the Old Art Building is a group of poems, the whole entitled “Lost Lexicon.”

Her inspiration for these poems was learning that roughly fifty words were to be cut from the Oxford Junior Dictionary, largely words having to do with nature and the outdoors, to make room for words children hear more frequently, many having to do with new technologies. It is in this context that Spaulding sees her work as a poet to be one of conservation.

The poet knew she wanted these poems done on letterpress, and initially she thought to hire someone to do the printing.

The letterpress artist (‘operator’ as a noun felt all wrong there!) contacted, however, offered instead to teach the poet her craft. And so Holly composed lines of type – actual, physical letters of poured lead – and impressed her words on sheets of handmade paper. The paper used is no longer available, the company that made it out of business. There was a display with a few lines of type and a little sign saying, “Please touch.” I did -- and felt suddenly near tears. Am I overly attached to words? To the physical world? Perhaps both, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Holly’s chosen words were names of plants and animals. On the walls where paintings are usually shown, small poems on sheets of handmade paper were presented to visitors. It was all (as an acquaintance said years ago when she became the mother of twins) very physical – natural objects, physical artifacts, material art.

The “Lost Lexicon” poem cycle may be available in future as a book. For now we still have Pilgrim, Spaulding’s 2014 work published by Alice Green & Co., and in that small, sweet book you will find the same poetic sensibility and feel the same gratitude at being able to hold the poet’s work in your hands, the book a physical object. 

We Used to Call It "Typing"

Old machine can produce new words

From Latin typus, from Ancient Greek τύπος (tupos, “mark, impression , type”), from τύπτω (tuptō, “I strike, beat”)

Think of the big drums called tympani, and you’re on the right track. Fingers strike keys, keys move type, type strikes paper on platen, leaving inked impression. The first commercial typewriter dates back to 1868 and the first office typists were all men. That’s because secretaries in those days were all men. (Also, the typewriter was a machine, right?) Later, as women entered the field, one full-page magazine advertisement (I used to have the magazine, but it’s gotten away from me) showed a young woman using its product under the banner “THE KEYS THAT GAVE HER FREEDOM!” I confess I never felt that way myself when I worked in offices. One generation’s freedom is another’s captivity.

Two visitors to bookstore

Where would the modern mystery novel have been without mysterious typewritten messages? The anonymous letter-writer uses a machine rather than a pen, realizing that handwriting is identifiable by experts. Ah, but the individual typewriter, too, has its tell-tale quirks. Perhaps one letter is slightly out of alignment or not hit with the same force as the others. Find the typewriter, and you’re on your way to solving the crime!

Older visitor was a machine

As is true of older automobiles and farm equipment, the workings of a typewriter are visible, so when something is not working, close visual inspection can often illuminate the problem. Mechanical objects, like their products, reveal themselves to an investigator, who does not need to sit paralyzed and helpless before a sealed “black box” but can “take a look under the hood,” so to speak, and tinker. There’s a nice work: tinker. Mechanical objects are more complicated than pots and pans but accessible to eyes and hands.

No secrets--isn't it beautiful?

This lovely old Woodstock typewriter was manufactured in Woodstock, Illinois, the little town where the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day” was filmed. Could there be a connection? Back to the past? The past living on in the present? The machine was produced close to the time my father (now deceased) was born, almost a hundred years ago. It still works.

How many poems and short stories and novels were composed on typewriters in the century of the machine’s dominance? Remember the three mystery poems I received in the mail earlier this year? In adolescence I generally wrote letters longhand but loved to type my poems. It felt so much more “professional,” as if I were a “real” writer. Then, to send them off to The New Yorker, in all the naiveté of youth! Such romance!

How many movies feature sound tracks with typing, that clattery, mechanical but somehow still human sound many of us still find cheerful and comforting? Sorry I didn't have the patience to persevere with uploading a video of typist at work in bookstore. Anyone who has types--I mean, tips!--on uploading videos, feel free to give me advice....