On the Subject of: An Interview with Denver Raike, Former Railroad Worker

Denver Raike is proud of his work and time with Norfolk and Southern Railroad Company from which he retired in 1996 after 36 years spent with what was one of the country’s most successful railroad companies during the time he was employed, and which remains important to the region and country today.  Portsmouth yard occupied a central position both physically and productively in the company’s rail traffic during Denver’s time that moved Appalachian coal and Detroit automobiles, and holds a significant and fascinating part of the Portsmouth city area’s work history.  A collection of Denver’s accounts and memories are thus an important part of the historic record, preserving and illuminating, among other things, a little piece of labor history of the Portsmouth area and of the country’s vital railroad industry.  I was in the Raike home, which Denver built himself, only a few minutes before Denver was giving me a tour of a cabinet storing and displaying old relics, gifts, and memorabilia from his days on the railroad.  He had time books that record employee seniorities going back to the 1920s, pictures, old iron locks, and employee-incentive gifts that include pocket knives, and time pieces.  Being my very first oral history interview for a university project for scholarly purposes, this was a learning experience for me in the technique and process of collecting oral histories as well as in the subject matter itself.  I only had to do as much as to open a story book to prompt the accounts of the old railroad worker beginning the interview.  Before the camera came on to record, Denver was already sharing some of his life and work on the railroad.

                Considering some of the dangers, incidents, and tiring work that Denver described in his accounts of railroad employment, his experience and recollections seemed positive and spirited.  That is, Denver mused on his railroad days more fondly than with any discomfort as he described his duties and job life.  That doesn’t mean though that he doesn’t hold a reality of the toil and difficulties of the labor, which mainly seems to be the long hours and the time spent away from home “on the other side” as Denver put it.  Denver spoke matter-of-factly when he said that his son had witnessed enough of the long and sometimes odd hours and difficulties of working in the railroad industry, as his dad did, while growing up; and Denver admitted that considering this, his son chose a different way to make a life instead of following in his dad’s footsteps to the rail yard.

                Denver shared a variety of aspects and incidents from his work days including tragic accidents and what it was like being aboard a train car near the front when the train struck another vehicle disastrously intercepting the tracks.  He told of several accidents, some fatal, and others where people miraculously survived.  In his account of a tanker-truck hauling a load of hot tar, he said that he saw the truck coming for half a mile on that clear July morning as the train headed west going 50 miles an hour.  The truck approached the crossing slow enough as to be stopping, but at the last moment seemed to let off the breaks as the truck entered the ascending grade over the tracks.  Denver was a break-man at the time and when he knew they were going to hit the truck, Denver yelled to the other guy in the car to “hit the floor, because we’re gonna’ get him; and we did”, as he said that both of them tried to get the middle of the floor.  They cut the truck in two just behind the tractor, and the number lights and all the glass was busted out on the front of the engine.  The load of hot tar covered and breeched the engine, covering two men inside with the hot tar.  The truck driver was killed and the two men in the engine were in a lot of pain and had to go to the hospital to get the tar removed.  Interesting about this accident was that Denver had taken the only pictures even though workers were not supposed to have cameras.  It turns out that it was good fortune for the claim agent that Denver broke the rule and had a camera and used it before the accident was cleaned up.  Denver shared these photos with me before the interview.  Also fascinating was the story Denver told of a runaway unmanned fifty car train that rolled all the way through town and rolled into the yard and out of the yard when someone finally caught up with it and set the breaks up.  Denver said that it rolled through five crossings, with some not having protective lights, and fortunately still, no one was hurt.

Many now retired railroad workers still today are hesitant or will refuse to talk on record about their time on the railroad and the events that took place during the 1978 Norfolk and Western strike that grew to national duress and garnered federal executive action.  This climaxed when “President Carter invoked emergency provisions of the Railway Labor Act, which enables the president to order strikers back to work for a 60-day ‘cooling-off’ period , during which time all parties were to participate in federally mediated negations”, after which union workers can resume their strike if nothing is worked out (Portsmouth Free Press, Spring 2008).  Though he seemed a little apprehensive about it, Denver did talk a little about the strike of 1978—some of the incidents that were a part of it, and how he felt about it.  He spoke briefly about a derailment close to Waller Street in Portsmouth, and of a “certain bridge around Waverly that’s in a curve” where the spikes were pulled out of the tracks.  Though Denver did speak a little about the strike, it was clear that he did not divulge all he knew.  He mentioned that he “saw [sic] a lot of things happen”, and he smiled or smirked noticeably as he pondered what to say and shared his accounts of the strike.  Recounting the incident of the bridge tracks near Waverly missing their spikes, Denver told of a man coming back to work after the strike who knew of their destruction, and who asked the track foreman if he had checked the spikes on that bridge, which must have been missed during inspections.  Denver revealed that he knows the identity of the man, but said “I won’t mention his name”.  So Denver’s interview reveals some incidents and perspective of the strike of 1978, but we also learn that there is much more we don’t know about this fervent historical event as well.

Denver’s accounts of his labors and times as a long standing railroad worker, who is retired but still involved in union functions, offer a perspective that saw a lot of change over the decades.  He talked about when he was first hired on in 1960 that the railroad company was still phasing out steam engines, and that the diesel engines today have grown in power significantly over time.  The biggest changes have come in various automations and progressions in communications.  He said that hand held radios changed a lot of things, and that engines today can be moved around in the yard unmanned with a remote device, and that computers revolutionized the railroad industry as well—in not the least of ways, with the acquisition of air conditioners in the engines.  Denver mused humorously that “the air conditioning wasn’t for the employee, it was for the computers.  You had to keep them computers cool, right?”  One of the more important perspectives that Denver offered in his oral history was the impact of the strike in Portsmouth.  He didn’t share a lot, but he did say that “as far as Portsmouth yard, we were hurt the worst after the strike because, you know, more damage was done here in Portsmouth”.  Denver told of the former president of Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, referred to as Dunlap, as saying that he would “make a whistle stop out of Portsmouth, and [that] consequently he did”.  Denver also revealed that Mr. Hail, a terminal superintendant, lost his job because he was “more sympathetic to the people here in Portsmouth…he didn’t put enough pressure [sic] on the people”.  Though the topic of the strike was not the topic of the interview, it was what stood out the most I believe; and Denver’s thoughts about the strike and its consequences are clear when he said that “I don’t think there was ever a real winner in that strike, I really don’t”.

  

A River House Holds an Early Formative History of the Historic River Town of Portsmouth, Ohio; A small project reveals conflicting information of house's origins and stylistic assessment

View from the east side of the house at 701 Market street.

                As you travel west on 7^th Street from the corner of Court street toward the Scioto River, two houses stand out distinctly among the other modern houses that surround them now,  well, among houses that are more modern in comparison anyway, as both are perceptively old and of another era completely.  The Northern most of these is an old dilapidated crumbling structure that looks like it must have come with the town when it was first established.  In-fact, this statement may not be far from the truth.  Standing as the very last structure on the Northern end of Market Street, this plain, unadorned, decaying home is still strangely regal and alluring.  Something about the old tall house is inviting and imposing at the same time.  But that sentiment isn't so uncommon among things that have lasted so rarely-long, and aged such that ironically the most established and defining constructs with the deepest roots look the most out of place.  Even in its current state of neglect and depression this house distinquishes and beautifys the area still.  701 Market Street in Portsmouth, Ohio, has a history of property and home ownership that goes back to the founders and earliest property owners of Portsmouth—in-fact its first owners weren’t of Portsmouth at all, they were the Scioto County Commissioners whom were deeded the property before Portsmouth was officially established.  Over the years many have owned the property and home, and establishing just when it was built proved to be difficult and ultimately circumstantial and indeterminate.  The house is known to history and to the area's people as, the James Marsh House, The Paul E. Long House, the Andrew Frowine Home (from the Scioto County, Ohio website), and for some reason the Nation Register of Historic Places calls it the Joseph Marsh House (I never found the name Joseph in my research).  The architectural style of the house also turned out to be conflicting, but nonetheless a great example of early American construction and design.

View of 701 Market Street house from the intersection of 7th and Court Streets.  7th Street here runs into the north End of Market Street.  Many modern structures, including the levee, now surround the much older 701 Market street house that has been standing nearly since the establishment of Portsmouth, between 1803-1815.  The house could be as old as 1822.

                
                The property upon where 701 Market Street sits today is located specifically in the South East corner of out-lot 14, and goes back to the original plat of Portsmouth mapped out by Henry Massie in 1807.  The city was plotted out from within the surrounding banks of the convergence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers--from the East edge of the Scioto and North side of the Ohio.  Out-lot 14 was the farthest North that the lots were mapped and sat as it does today, at the end of Market Street.  There were not nearly as many roads in the original plat as exist today in the same space.  But a few of the same roads still exist today, and even fewer of the original names, but one of these few original platted and named streets is Market Street (including its large square), and it is also the towns widest street as well.  Henry Massie’s original Explanation of the Plan of Portsmouth describes that “Market Street is six perches wide.  Water Street (Front Street now) is five perches wide.  The other streets are four perches wide.  Alleys are one perch wide”.  So Market Street stands out as an intended developing center in the town’s original design.

                The property of out-lot 14 was originally deeded by Henry Massie to the commissioners of Scioto County, July 10, 1807, before Portsmouth was officially established as a city, but with the intentions of the “prosperity of the town of Portsmouth”.  In August of 1808 the property was sold in whole to Charles T. Mastin and John Brown for “ten dollars current money of the United States of America”.  John Brown is significant in the early development of Portsmouth because he owned a lot of it.  Brown owned, among other land, a big chunk of the city between Chillicothe Road and what is today, Waller Street.  Then two years later in Nov of 1810 Charles Mastin deeded the property to John Brown in a bulk deal, when Brown acquired an assortment of other properties within the city limits of Portsmouth, in a purchase of two thousand five hundred dollars.  The property transitioned again three and a half years later in May of 1814 when John Brown and his wife Hannah sold it to William Kendall and Rachel Kendal for one dollar.  This couple was another significant landholder in early Portsmouth.  Then again, the property changed hands in whole form just a year and a half later in December  1815 to one, William Swords, for a hundred dollars (a little steeper than the one dollar Kendall paid).  Three years later the lot is split for the first time when Swords sells to James Marsh the Southern part of the out-lot for the sum of fifty dollars.  The property from then would stay split, come together as whole again, and split once more as it is today in its Southern and Northern parts.  John H. Thornton is the buyer who brings the North and South parts of the lot together again between 1818 and 1845, buying the North end from William Swords in 1818 and the South end of the property (the part on which 701 Market Street stands today) from Hugh Cook Nov. 12 1845.  Subsequently a Giles S. Thornton ends up with the property from John (maybe Giles is John’s son or brother, but the transition wasn’t recorded) and sells it in whole form again to Moses C. Wilson seven years later, Feb. 14, 1852.  Up to this point sometime I believe a house must have been built, though I don’t know for certain.  Though County Auditor records assess the house's building at 1880, I come to this conclusion because Wilson keeps the property much longer than anyone had previously—32 years.  Moses sells the South end (which is the part of the property related to the current structure) to Mary M. McGowan in July of 1884; then McGowan keeps the property 36 years until her death in 1920.  So this prolonged ownership between two people between 1852 and 1920 points to a house being on the property at or prior to Moses in 1852.  Furthermore the trend of shorter turnover of the property actually started with owners previous to Moses:  John McDowell gets the property from James Marsh October 28, 1822 and keeps it for 13 years until 1835 when Hugh Cook acquires the property and keeps it for 10 years until November of 1845 when John H. Thornton brought the N. and S. ends of out-lot 14 together for the last time.  Prior to James Marsh owning the property in 1818, I don’t think a house was built, because the turnover was so frequent; but, Marsh keeps his south end of out-lot 14 for four years until 1822, then, again, McDowell keeps it for 13 years, and Cook for 10 years, and Thornton for 7 years; and it is by this point in 1852 that a house must certainly have been built as Wilson and McGowan then took the property into the 1920s.  I believe, either Marsh, McDowell, Cook, or one of the Thorntons must have built a house on the southern end of out-lot 14 between 1818-1852 at the earliest and latest.  Another bit of evidence that lends creed to this conclusion is that Giles Thornton takes the first mortgage out on the property October 4, 1849.  As well when Giles Thornton deeds the property to Moses Wilson, the sell is for nine hundred and fifty dollars, which is a lot compared to previous prices for just that lot—though I don’t know the price that Marsh sold to McDowell, and McDowell to Cook, or Cook to Thornton.  As well, Wilson sells the property to McGowan for $1,330.00.

                The trail of owners for the property that 701 Market Street now occupies doesn’t leave a clear answer for who built the current house and when.  Other houses may have been built then destroyed before the current one was constructed, so, it is with only speculation that I make my conclusions.  Although I didn’t pursue or exhaust all the avenues of research beyond the realty records, there is other information and records for the historic house that I found.  The Scioto County Auditor’s records for 701 Market Street show that the house was built in 1880, although I believe this is certainly wrong and found nothing to corroborate that assessment in my research, and I have been told that the Auditor’s records can be mistaken, especially with a house as old as this.  I’m not even sure who the current owner is.  The Auditor’s records show the owner as John Biller, as do the County Recorder’s realty records, but two other separate sources from the community say the owner is actually Michael E Russell JR, a local business owner in the area.  As well Russell’s address is in-fact the mailing address shown in the Auditor’s records as well, for contacting the owner—so that source in itself is conflicting.  Conflicting as well are all the different titles or names that I found of the current property.

A detailed shot of the front (east end) of the house.  The crowned flat colums or pilasters that flank the door are significant.  The white painted stone inlay above all the doors and windows is significant also, as well is the rectangular two-pained window that modestly adorns the top of the entrance.  This detail shows also the disrepair that the house is in, revealing major cracks in the brick structure and the multicolored chipped-away paint.

                A final assessment of the House is a consideration of its architecture and style to place it in a particular period (time) and design.  A particularly tall brick house, the National Historic Registry shows that the Market Street house in out-lot 14 is of Federal style, which would put the construction at a period in the early Republic of the United States up to the 1850s and would corroborate the assessment made here with the realty records.  The red brick of the structure is covered in discolored, weathered, cracking, and chipping paint currently and the brick goes all the way to the ground.  The blotchy paint is different dirty cream colors to mortar gray and almost white.  The same missing-paint covers the house from top to bottom.  The front East end of the house has five dominant windows with the top three being two-stacked single sashes and the two bottom windows are fashioned of twelve panes each.  At the North end of the house is the front entrance door that completes the symmetry of the door and windows.  A thin tiny two paned window sits atop the front door frame and two windows are visible at the base of the house that are partially covered by the ground.  The window construction is wooden sashes and framing.  Above and below each window and the door is what looks like a stone, or plaster, or concrete, thin rectangular inlay that trims the windows and faintly garnishes the otherwise unembellished house.  The ground covers part of the structure’s base as a result of the levee that was raised around and behind the house between it and the Scioto River sometime probably in the early 20^th century after either the 1913 or 1937 floods.  The roof has a symmetrical gable that steeps on both the east and west sides.  A single chimney protrudes from the South side of the gable and hides within the structure of the house.  Even though the house is currently evaluated as a Federal style construction, there are several problems with this appraisal.  Though some of this style is evident, the style of the house actually seems more of an earlier Georgian style in-fact.  Federal style is associated with more elaborate and delicate designs and rounded and curved features of which this house has none.  This house is rather plain with no distinguishing elaborate features, and this house is characterized more by its boxy, angular, linear style than curved.  There are no fanlights above the entrance, or windows, or anywhere else that would be typical of Federal style; and there are no side-lights around these elements either.  There are no wooden balustrades adorning any part of the house—not now anyway.  There are no semicircular or semi elliptical features at all with this construction.  Though there is no fanlight over the doorway, a boxy one does exist above the front door.  There is no narrow side windows flanking the front door or any moldings or decorative cornices below the roof, and there is no dentil molding anywhere on the house.  Even more there is a glaring omission of any Palladian windows anywhere on the original structure.  As well there are no shutters present today either, although these  may have existed at some point.  There are no ovals, arches, circles, or semicircles of anykind, or decorative garlands, or any decorative, delicate details.  Though the period of style is likely aligned well with Federal style construction I believe the house is more Georgian Colonial style simply because it is much more angular and square and rectangular in the structural pieces and details as well—right from the individual bricks to the square window panes and thin rectangular double paned windows above the entrances.  Georgian style is more square and focused on symmetry.  Also, characteristic of a particular Georgian style detail that sets this house apart, are the flattened columns on each side of the front door.  This house doesn’t have a centered door or a double chimney that some Georgian style constructions have but the chimney is on the end, and the symmetry is there.  Another particular Georgian feature with this house is the twelve paned windows on main floor.  Really the only particular Federal characteristic is the high pitched roof, which in-fact is a characteristic of Georgian as well to a lesser steeped degree.  Observably Federal style is more decorative than Georgian Colonial generally, and this house is more plain.  Also,  Federal style is characterized by its curved lines, of which this structure has none, so seemingly apparent to the definitions of the individual styles it is hard to even say that this house is much of a hybrid of the two.  While it does have some Federal style characteristics, this house has two distinct Georgian Colonial features and is lacking a distinct Federal style feature, and thus, is much more Georgian in its representation.

The house currently occupying the south end of out-lot 14 is in obvious disrepair.  The property today looks much different than it did over 200 hundred years ago with the open landscape changed by a slim but notable displacement of the mouth of the Scioto River with the Ohio and Erie Canal created, and the expansion of sprawling asphalt and streets and structures over the years, and a levee raised just behind the house paralleling the Scioto River.   This project was full of conflicting information from seemingly reliable sources and led to only speculation to who built the house and when.  Even the celebrated Portsmouth Murals are misleading with thier representation of the orginal plat of Portsmouth that includes names on properties that, though were early, were several and over ten years removed sometimes from the original plat.  John Thornton who is credited to an original property-spot on the Mural, was the sixth person to have owned that property and didn't buy it until 1818--11 years after the original plat was maped (although he was the first to own the North division of the property).  Even more misleading is the date the Mural decorates next to Hentry Massie mapping out the original plan of Portsmouth, 1803, which may be when the city was founded, but not when Henry Massie mapped out the original plat.  He finished this in 1807.  The Scioto County Ohio webstite actually puts 701 Market Street at being built in 1822, which I don't think is necessarily wrong.  This in-fact would corroborate the assessment of an earlier Georgian Colonial style construction.  I couldn’t find records of the additions to the house or damages made by the historic floods of the area that were sure to have had an impact on it.  Although I did find that both ends of the property were acquired by the city of Portsmouth in 1940, maybe as a result of the 1937 flood damages or debts of the depression.  This was a river property and a river home.  At one point the Flannigan Coal Supply Company acquired the North part of the property (not where the house is today) in 1926, more than likely because of the transportation that the rivers provided nearby.  The fact that Market Street was part of original platted streets lends to speculation of a house being there very early on, rather than being used by any farm land or something--certainly much sooner than Auditors assessment of 1880.  Market Street was the widest street in Portsmouth and was meant to be a central place where houses and businesses and buildings could be built for a new up-start river city.

Primary Source Material is Ever-Growing More Accessible, Searchable; and Research More Comprehensive

                Investigating the past and contributing professionally or otherwise soundly to the collective understanding of the past and the former lives that occupied its eras is dependent on the Historic Record.  The Historic Record is any primary evidence or source of the past, which is not limited to just written texts, but also includes, oral histories, images, statistics, things constructed by nature or man, and any artifacts that have survived the past.  Historians know that while primary sources do not change (save for lack of preservation) historiographies and interpretations of historic records and of the past do evolve and change over time.  This fact then is the essential difference in primary sources and secondary sources.  Primary sources are authentic materials of the past, and secondary sources are the critical on -going dialogue and contributions made based on the Historic Record which puts these materials into context and examines their meaning to the means of further understanding our ever distant past.

                Research is one of the elemental practices and skills that define a historian’s duties, and one of the first steps in the process of history.  This process of doing history is changing (which is the theme of this blog’s ongoing posts), along with everything else it seems, in the now and emerging digital age; the way historians do research, evaluate research, and present their interpretations, and how the public receives these histories is changing exponentially along with changing technologies.  Part of this digitally motivated evolution in the discipline of History (although evolution is far too slow a term to relate) is how research is done.  Beyond the preservation benefits, it is the access of sources that has been revolutionized with computers, digital technology, and the internet.  Whereas in the very recent past it was necessary for a researcher to scour sometimes far apart libraries, museums, and archives, today much of this research can be done from a swivel chair in front of any computer with internet access.  Library materials and archives are evermore becoming available online for researchers to examine and print – secondary sources and primary sources.  One such database that provides instant access to scanned digitalized copies of primary source materials is the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection.  This online resource’s materials comes directly from the AAS collections and, although it is currently still in the process of being created, it will consist of over 6,500 American periodicals published between 1691 -1877.  According to the EBSCOhost Publishing website, this particular resource surpasses all other online resources’ in the comprehensive collection of American periodicals within this early American time period.

                The AAS Historical Periodicals Collection will be categorized in five different series, of which two are currently available: Series 1 -- 1691 –1820; and Series 2 -- 1821—1837.  With the use of digital character recognition technology, all documents scanned into this resource can be key-word searched, which means that documents do not have to be searched only by subject or title or author, and it makes possible for researchers also to search an extensive database more comprehensively about a particular focus and more efficiently .  For instance sometimes a particular object of a researcher’s interest or focus may not necessarily be the focus or subject of a document that can indeed provide some primary evidence for the researcher.  In this case a key-word search will turn up relevant material for a researcher that a particular subject search would not.  This is an example of how digital technology is changing the discipline of history and not only the efficiency, but the comprehensiveness of research and scholarship.

Traditional More Than Technical; but Indeed Practical

Student Website Review of the Historical website "Common Place" for the HIST3999--Digital History course at Shawnee State University. The Review is based on guidlines from the Journal of American History.

Common Place: A common place, an uncommon voice. http://www.common-place.org/. Sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society in association with the University of Oklahoma. Edited by: Catherine E. Kelly, University of Oklahoma; Trudy Powers, American Antiquarian Society; John McCoy, designer. Reviewed September 12, 2010.

    

        Common Place is a quarterly web Journal or magazine that is available free to the public online, to browse, read, search content by key word, critique and give direct feedback, and subscribe to; and it bills itself as

“The interactive journal of early American life”.

"Interactive", because subscribers are invited to comment on scholarly contributions to the site, and "early American life", because the site focuses on American History before 1900. The first issue goes back to Volume 1, Number 1: September 2000; and all the past issues since are easily available from a link located in the footer at the bottom of every page. The journal includes columns, feature articles, and reviews, as well as various ways for subscribers to interact in a public forum, with the feature authors, and creators of the site. In many ways this site embraces new technology of the digital age and in some ways it shuns it. While it does utilize the medium of the internet and format of the web magazine, its focus is on traditional arrangement and appearance of historical scholarship more than progressive digital presentations. In overall design this makes for a great contrast in technique and content, and the medium in which the content is presented. However, the mass communication aspect of the technology is utilized well here, but the spirit of the website is still very much traditional--in terms of the discipline and study of History--and it caters to those who are comfortable with that; which makes the transition to the internet for some history buffs and history enthusiasts seem not so much different than the techniques of learning history that some may be used to or loyal to. This website also stands to show that this traditional spirit does have a place on the internet, and that not everything on the web is flashing and moving, or distracting and void of contemplation and thoughtful reading; and most importantly, good and pleasurable writing.


        A great element of Common Place is--even with its caliber of scholarship, writing, and editorship--that it is not meant to communicate only to professional historians, and doesn’t include a ton of professional jargon. This web site’s readership is meant to be that interested and history-engaged public. The articles are readable and relatable to the generally interested public, and the site boasts a standard of enjoyable reading over the technical or tedious and tiresome variety. However, this site is not disconnected from timely scholarship and the professional discipline of History. The features, columns, and reviews written in each quarterly issue are in-fact written by professionals working in the field of history. The first feature in the current issue is titled Lifting the veil of race at the U.S. Capitol: Thomas Crawford’s Statue of Freedom, written by Vivien Green Fryd, Professor and Chair in the Department of History of Art at Vanderbilt University. As is the case with all Feature author’s some of Fryd’s credentials are listed with her article, including books she has written about politics, art, and race. In the article Fyrd comprehensively analyzes the symbolism and cultural significance of the Statue of Freedom that sits famously atop the U.S. Capitol Building's grand dome in the context of its specific art history and iconographic influences, and the current politics and literary works of the time it was created--1855 to 1863. While tracing the roots of some of the fascinating art history, she references the relevant works of Herman Melville, W.E.B. DuBois, Stowe, and Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly among other relevant context of the time, and analyzes the politics, society, and racism of the era as well. Fryd argues that the symbolism of “bondage and freedom are intertwined” in this famous supposed icon of liberty, which was commissioned by then secretary of war Jefferson Davis, who was also in charge of decorating the Capitol building. The article is articulately written but is best described I think by its thorough scholarship, while at the same time remaining engrossing and comprehensible. In this readable context the site does a good job serving as a link or bridge between the engaged and interested public and professional historians; and it functions as a great way to disseminate historical scholarship to the public in an educated, but relatable and jargon-free way. These are the kind of sites that bring the public in and serve an elegant but pragmatic purpose as well.

        Common Place may not be the exemplary example of historiography in the new digital age as far as utilizing the most recent of technology and design features, and even some more common ones—like video—that other sites may use, but the site does incorporate the use of the internet well in presenting its history. Common Place makes use of hyper links in its text and its design allows for easy to read content and navigation. As well, the audience is clearly presented and understood in the

“Why a Common Place?”

link in the footer of the site’s pages. One popular web-based technology that the cite does use well also, is the use of the blog feature. Subscribers to the site can engage authors and other readers with comments to the journal’s articles. This feature of the web site certainly defines the greatest advantage that the medium of the internet brings to this kind of historical scholarship that traditionally published journals cannot. With the Republic of Letters--the online message board--the creators of the site boast that while it may not focus on the emerging medias and technologies of the internet, it does utilize the internets most important feature, “bringing people together to discuss ideas”.

        Common Place serves also to bring a part of history to the internet that is somewhat disconnected from it, and today’s media-hungry public. The “post-photography” American History as the creators put it, is more vogue because of the relative ease to produce more media friendly history presentations--utilizing more photographs, audio, and video of our more recent past. The editors cite sites as the Journal for Multimedia History, American Memory Project, and NPR’s Lost and Found Sound as examples of these kinds of “wonderful” and “valuable” history web sites that are out their, but all “focus disproportionately on post-photography America”. Thus this site serves a specific purpose and helps to fill a sort of void that the creators attend is problematic; and they write that,

“Common-Place won’t dazzle you with snazzy graphics”.

Google Earth

        I don't know if Google is "making us stupid" necessarily, as Nicholas Carr titles his article for the Atlantic in the July/August issue, but I am concerned that they could be taking over the world in the pretty-near future; or at least the monster they want to create could. Even more concerning than our society's dependents on the internet and how it is changing the way we read and think and literally the physiology of our malleable impressionable brains, is the next great threat of technology that Carr includes toward the end of his article and which warns of a time where it seems to me that biological intelligence is indistinguishable from artificial intelligence.

       
        This revelation (to me at least) about Google’s future plans for the human race is a dramatic high point in Carr’s article, but his central claim is what has already been going on in the world and our brains without many of us realizing it. Carr intelligently brings us up to speed about our reading experiences (pun intended) today. While those in the reading world may be doing so much more than ever before, we may not be doing it in the same capacity, the same way, or even using the same parts of our brains to do it with. Carr explains that before access to the internet became a household commodity people’s reading habits were much different, and when you stop to think about it you know he has a point. Reading mediums today like the internet indulge people in ways books cannot; not only to its seemingly infinite abyss of information, but at a sporadic and yet selective and rapid pace, of which Carr calls

“power browsing”.

        Along with the internet other mediums for information output, like television and newspapers, are following suit and offering innovative ways for receivers (the public) to more efficiently scan and select and take-in information. Carr also explains the scientific consensus of the malleable adult brain. The brain in all stages of life is never static, but in-fact is constantly adapting to its intake and environment. Measurable physiological changes occur in adult brains, evolving according to how we use it. Synapses change, new ones form, and obsolete ones go out of use and quit functioning. So in effect our brains are constantly being rewired. So as our reading habits have changed, which is evidenced by the changing and flashing digital mediums and modes of information and communication today, so have our brains. The internet is a playground and breeding ground for attention span deficiencies. According to Carr many people, including him, are having a hard time reading books the way they used to. He says that he grows disinterested more quickly and often gets fidgety and distractible while trying to delve into a new book. The best point though that I think Carr makes about those who are not reading books anymore is that missing out on the information provided by authors in the printed pages of books is not the real problem, but rather lost is what is inspired by an author’s words and generated within one’s self by the engagement in deep reading. Carr states that what is valuable and lacking within modern reading habits is

“the intellectual vibrations an author’s words [sic] set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas.”

Carr argues that the same kind of contemplation, reflection, and introspection that is fostered by deep reading is lost completely in the world of the flashing, fleeting digital pages of the internet. Reading habits associated with the internet equate to little more than just gathering information rather than taking the time to reflect on it and refine the raw resource for oneself.


        Can Carr’s argument of a changing in the way we read, and replacing deep reading with power browsing web pages, be completely blamed on the internet though? Or is the internet just another bit of evidence and correlation of this change? What if the cause is some even more-broad social phenomenon like the population boom and competition to achieve the varieties of information, and the interdisciplinary aspects of professions these days that help to drive that. The internet of course has revolutionized the access and production of information but what if it itself is just another effect and reflection of what our society has become or demands. The style of reading that the internet promotes isn’t the only thing of which Carr describes as efficient and immediate above all else, but just as with texting, the electric razor, and the pop tart, those are defining qualities of what is important to society today. The need for efficiency has been growing since the Industrial Revolution and the emerging of new technologies over time; from interchangeable parts to the cotton gin and efficiency in killing with a rifle and automatic guns. The history of communications shows the drive toward immediacy and access; from the printing press to the telegraph and telephone to satellites. I don’t think the changing of our reading habits and the implications of this are entirely the fault of the internet, but rather a trend in history that has been waiting for something like the internet to come along and feed.


        After making his point on how the internet has already changed and is continuing to change our brains, Carr anxiously states,

        "Where does it end?"

Carr then quotes the founders of Google and their goal to create the "ultimate search engine [which] is something as smart as people--or smarter". Basically, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page want to use the "perfect search engine" to create what they themselves deem "artificial intelligence". But this kind of artificial intelligence wouldn't be separate from the human kind, but rather would be physically interconnected with human minds while seeking to improve and manipulate the way we gather our own intelligence or information. Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt defines this perfect search engine

"as something that 'understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want'".

Carr actually quotes Brin saying,

"Certainly if you had all the world's information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain you'd be better off".

It scares me that those with as much power, resources, and money at their disposal as those who run Google, and who want to revolutionize and exploit the world, are working from that frame of mind. Carr calls it appropriately, “unsettling”.

       
        So where does it end? Corporations already want nothing more than to control society and its consumers and policy makers, and are utterly consumed with greed. Actually the ultimate goal at Google is not to create the perfect search engine; it’s the same as every other corporation in the capitalist world, and that is to extract as much money and sustenance from the people and resources of the world as possible for the gluttonous growth and soul avariciousness of the company and its benefactors. In no way should a monster like that be allowed to create the monster that Google is boasting to be heading toward. I mean Google is talking about access to our brains, and to something that will be smarter than us no less. As with all new technologies that change societies, there are always drawbacks and liberties that have to be given to solve new problems. This idea however seems to have the potential in a variety of ways to be much more disastrous than helpful to the common man. Most people will say to this, just don’t use the technology then. Just opt out of the applications of it, stay keen and keep doing your thing. It’s not that simple though. This isn’t going to revolutionize mountain climbing or something. The scary part about technologies like this that penetrate society so, is that they become integral to it. A hundred years ago cars and finance were revolutionizing the times but we didn’t have to have them; cars were just the convenient new thing that was catching on widely. Fast forward a little and it is hard to function in society let alone compete in it without a car or a bank account. So maybe no one is forcing us physically, but to get anywhere in society we are forced to accommodate to the use of these things. Fifteen years ago it was ok not to have internet; it was big sure, but not everyone needed to have it yet. Today if someone doesn’t have access to the internet, they are completely out of touch, and by society’s standards, not ok. This can be true with any other widespread or exploitative technology to come. Right now we manipulate the internet; wait until it manipulates us. The only thing we have over the internet and processors is the ability to think abstractly and that we are the ones pushing the buttons and in control—or are we?