Paper Abstracts
The American Midwest and the Geographic Imagination
Tim Anderson – Ohio University
American geographers characterize the Midwest as a prime example of what are known as perceptual regions, places whose boundaries and geographic extent are informal or ambiguous, sometimes not codified legally or politically, and often open to debate and critique. But while it may not exist as a formalized region, few would argue with the assertion that many of the powerful images, tropes, and discourses associated with the Midwest – Main Street; the Corn Belt; bucolic rural landscapes; conservatism – are deeply imbedded in the American conscious and its idealized identities. That is, for many Americans the Midwest is at once real and perceived, something both concrete and imagined. This presentation examines such concepts through a synopsis of how academics and other authors – but cultural and historical geographers in particular – have approached the Midwest as both a place and as representation.
“Welcome to [Blank]”: State Welcome Centers and the Promotion of Place
Ethan Bottone and Elyssa Ford – Northwest Missouri State University
Welcome centers are a conspicuous part of the American roadside landscape. When crossing state lines, often the first site seen is a welcome sign and an arrow pointing towards a visitor center that services motorists. As the first stop in a state for many travelers, welcome centers also provide the first introduction for visitors, especially for those who are new travelers to the region. Therefore, a primary function of welcome centers is to inform travelers about the state they are visiting, participating in place promotion processes; however, understandings of place promotion at state welcome centers has not been a topic of consideration in past research, while welcome centers themselves are missing in much of the geography and tourism literature. This preliminary study seeks to reverse that trend by interrogating how state welcome centers promote the places they “welcome” people to. Through a comparative study of the themes present in different state welcome centers, as well as the spaces of the centers themselves, our work expands the landscapes and understandings of place promotion to an often taken-for-granted space that many of us have visited before.
“Stuck in the Middle” – US Route 50 in the “Midwest”
Wayne Brew – Montgomery County Community College
US Route 50 was established in 1926 and by 1948 was a coast (Ocean City, Maryland) to coast (San Francisco, California) transcontinental highway. In 1972 it was truncated on the west end to Sacramento, California. This illustrated presentation will focus on US Route 50 in the “Midwest”, a perceptual region that is defined by different people in different ways. For this discussion it will include the states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. I traveled this portion of US 50 during my 2017 sabbatical. The presentation will focus on roadside commercial architecture and signs. The changing pathways used over the years including a brief merger with US 66 and a connection to a Superfund Site will also be discussed.
A Geospatial Examination of Material Culture in the Heartland: The Boone’s Lick Road from Paleo to Present
Sarah A. Coppersmith - University of Missouri-St. Louis
This cross disciplinary view poses inquiries about place, examines material culture, landscape morphology, transitions, geography, and history through a geospatial framework featuring locales in Montgomery County’s eastern half of Missouri’s Boone’s Lick Road (BLR). An idiographic descriptive geographic approach (Creswell, Sauer) provides specific examples along with a phenomenological discussion (Cresswell, Tuan) contributing an interpretation of the landscape and material culture from the Pleistocene through the present in these spaces from the Graham Cave to the Loutre Lick.
Graham Cave was the first archaeological site in the US designated a National Historic Landmark. The significance is understood with an interpretation of the cave’s physiographic and geographic setting, human environment adaptation, and cultural artifact toolkits. These notable and critically important discoveries changed the known archaeological record from the late Pleistocene, early Archaic, and Holocene periods. The flora, fauna, geology, and artifacts represented a transition in cultural behaviors, climate, understanding archaeological and geologic eras, archaeological dating, significant projectile point investigations, and new classification leading to naming the Dalton point and archeological period of technological change after Missouri’s Judge Dalton.
The BLR as cultural cradle, birthplace, and the exact location of geographer Carl Sauer‘s ideas, birthing his conceptual framework which led to his work, Morphology, will be reviewed. Incorporates 1800s migration, architectural diffusion, settlement patterns, Spanish land grants with iconic DM Boone, a continuous spring, historic tavern invoices, and nineteenth century tools as the material culture of residents near the Loutre Lick. Introducing a BLR architectural palimpsest (Marvell), and an 1800s Girl’s Academy and historic brick home featuring a narrative of courageous actions towards attackers on the road during the Civil War. A new landscape chronotope (Remm & Kasemets) relating to quality of life, topophilia, and restorative environment (Ogunseitan) will be offered for participating and interpreting these remarkable areas in Missouri and beyond.
Kuwohi and the Repatriation of Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Seth Kannarr – University of Tennessee
Within the context of the greater place naming turn over the last decade, recent attention has been brought to the proposed renaming of Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) by the Tribal Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Originally called Kuwohi by natives for hundreds of years, this indigenous history was erased in 1859 when the mountain was renamed after Confederate general Thomas L. Clingman. In this project, I seek to interview key stakeholders to better understand human perceptions and grounded experiences with the potential renaming of this popular mountain, as well as to gauge how the renaming of Clingmans Dome would intersect with people’s competing senses of place. To add requisite historical context, I plan to investigate and visit the archives to unpack the full naming history of Clingmans Dome. It is our intent to help demystify the process of place naming, and help place renaming be more participatory across all perspectives, from members of the Cherokee Nation, to National Park Service personnel, to everyday visitors of the GSMNP. Additionally, I will use the interview data to create an interpretative display sign on the mountain to educate visitors on the natural heritage of the land and the indigenous and post-colonial history of the mountain currently named Clingmans Dome. Intentional emphasis will be placed upon Cherokee voices and perspectives on the past, present, and future of this sacred place for all visitors to learn about the power and influence of place naming into perpetuity.
An Argument for the “Walking Intensive” Class: Introduction to the Humanized Earth
Soren C. Larsen – University of Missouri
Geography 1550: Introduction to the Humanized Earth is an introductory level course taught at the University of Missouri (MU) that provides students with an introduction to the field of cultural geography. The course is required for geography majors and satisfies a social science elective in the university’s general education requirements. Enrollments average thirty students, about half of whom are geography majors. Originally, the course used a textbook to provide an overview of the history of cultural geography and a description of themes and concepts in each of the major subfields. In this presentation, I describe the development of a series of walking tours that use landscapes local to the MU campus to teach methods for reading the cultural landscape, from Carl Sauer’s “morphologic method” to more recent “critical” approaches informed by Marxism, feminism, and humanism. The tours provide instruction in basic methods of field observation and scaffold the interpretive skills required for landscape interpretation, eventually requiring students to read a landscape on their own during a ten-minute oral “walking exam.” Local landscapes have now replaced the textbook, and the tours communicate basic concepts and themes in the subfields of cultural geography. Currently, I am testing whether these tours enhance the students’ sense of place and appreciation of landscape as text, and future research will investigate the effects these tours have on physical and mental health. I conclude by making a case, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, for “walking intensive” courses that provide holistic skills development rarely offered in other introductory-level university courses.
RLDS Reunion Grounds: Landscapes of Moderate Mormonism
William D. Moore – Boston University
The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly called the RLDS, initiated multi-day outdoor reunions for its membership in the final decades of the nineteenth century. One of six historical branches of Mormonism, the RLDS developed after a mob killed the prophet Joseph Smith in 1844. Congregations of Smith’s followers in the American Midwest subsequently formed what they claimed to be the true Mormon Church, rejecting Brigham Young’s leadership and condemning polygamy. Religious scholars have suggested the RLDS, currently known as the Community of Christ, practiced a “Moderate Mormonism” and the theology and praxis of the denomination evolved separately from other LDS branches in relation to adjacent Protestant religious practices.
Largely held during the summer months, RLDS reunions became increasingly formalized over the course of the twentieth century, transforming over time from ephemeral camp meetings to permanent grounds resembling sectarian summer camps. Reunion grounds became essential sites for enacting and inculcating RLDS identity and ideology as local and regional organizations acquired property throughout the United States. By 1981, the church maintained 132 developed grounds which were frequently wooded and almost universally provided access to water, both for recreation and for the group’s sacramental enactment of baptism. Like camp meeting groves of other Protestant denominations, RLDS reunion grounds evolved to contain tents and other sleeping accommodations, recreational facilities, dining structures, and spaces for worship and religious education.
These religious compounds have not been adequately documented and interpreted. By drawing upon written records, church publications, historical photographs, and the buildings and landscapes which comprise these institutions, this twenty-minute, illustrated, introductory overview seeks to rectify this gap in the literature while simultaneously contributing to a more nuanced history of the American Restorationist movement.
Historical Landmarks in New Mexico: Themes and Landscapes
Samuel M. Otterstrom – Brigham Young University
Highway markers are one way that communities commemorate events, mark the location of historical town sites or old buildings, highlight important individuals who influenced the area or region, or indicate other past geographies that made some kind of distinct influence on the area. Most states in the United States have historical landmark programs that showcase snippets of their states’ past geographies in a way that on one hand is fairly accessible to people driving its public roads and highways, but on the other hand is often ignored by drivers who are in a hurry to get somewhere else. Some states have very formalized statewide highway marker criteria and design specifications. Other states are less consistent in the way that markers are designated and erected. New Mexico is one state that has an official highway marker program with distinctively designed markers. In this paper I construct a comparative historical typology of these landmarks and analyze their spatial distributions within New Mexico, emphasizing important themes in their history such as Indians and early settlement. I will also briefly show how New Mexico’s historical markers differ from those of surrounding Rocky Mountain states. A field research sampling of some of these markers reveals the added value of being in situ to fully appreciate the historical geography of the history behind the marker.
Near Woods; A New Look at an Old Familiar Place
Kevin Patrick – Indiana University of Pennsylvania
The near-woods are patches of nature that have evolved with adjacent communities. They have been exploited as repositories of local resources such as timber, stone, fossil fuels, and water. They have been preserved as nature parks and spaces of public recreation, and they have provided comfort, solace, and freedom from societal structures for community residents. I spent one year observing the nature of Indiana, Pennsylvania’s adjacent near-woods, known as White’s Woods, and exploring its long-standing relationship with the community of Indiana. I found that I was following in the footsteps of others like Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Frederick Law Olmsted, Aldo Leopold, and Douglas Tallamy who explored this same close relationship between where we live and where nature resides.
The Making of an American Cultural Icon: Postcard Imagery and Place Promotion along Route 66
Adam A. Payne – Auburn University and Douglas A. Hurt – University of Missouri
U.S. Highway 66 (better known as Route 66) connected Chicago and Los Angeles between 1926 and 1985. Since then, remnants of the decommissioned road and adjacent tourist infrastructure have become heritage tourism destinations for those wishing to better understand America’s past. As part of the process of interpreting historic place promotion along the highway, we sampled 451 Route 66 postcards in the online collection of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI; https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/). These visual geographies offer insights into how places were portrayed as Americans increasingly took road trips and car-based vacations. Several results emerged. The postcards primarily were published between 1940 and 1970 and offer a window into Route 66 during those decades. Geographically, postcards representing Arizona, Missouri, and Oklahoma make up nearly 60 percent of the sample. Thematically, businesses (such as motels and restaurants), the road itself, automobiles, and physical landscapes (often exotic desert or mountain locations) are commonly represented. Overall, these postcard images helped shape tourist (and non-tourist) interpretations of the highway in the middle of the twentieth century, contributing to the making of an American cultural icon.
Evidence Past and Present: Measurements, Photos, Maps, and Who Stood Where on May 4
Chris W. Post – Kent State University at Stark
In 2022, Kent State University dedicated nine new memorials to those students whom the Ohio National Guard (ONG) shot and wounded on May 4, 1970. The pathway to establishing these markers proved bumpy. In addition to the Covid-19 pandemic shunting the tragedy’s 50th anniversary activities, researchers also found that most of the recorded distances between the students and the ONG varied, sometimes widely. Federal and state agencies documented distances immediately after the shootings as part of their reports. Subsequent historical studies reinforced some of these results, disregarded others, and introduced new ones. A disjointed combination of these distances has since been used by May 4 researchers to detail this story. Kent State University undertook a reevaluation of these of these distances immediately before ordering the fabrication of the memorials and realized these disparate results. This presentation evaluates these different data sets and uses the campus’ landscape, via historic photography and other evidence, to explain how these measurements varied.
Triumphs and Tribulations of a Student Story Map Collaboration
Stephanie Roper and Haylee-Lynn Parr – Nashua Community College
How can colleges and universities help students understand meaning within landscapes and a sense of place in their community? One way is for them to participate in group projects that have an enduring outcome, such as a Story Map.
In 2022, an extensive internship project involving interns from all of the community colleges in New Hampshire was launched through the New Hampshire Humanities Collaborative. This group endeavor, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, was based on the concept of multiple perspectives bringing meaning to landscapes within the state. With guidance from faculty mentors at the seven colleges, student interns chose landscapes and monuments to be researched. Their writings were taken by a single intern (Haylee-Lynn Parr from Nashua Community College) and collated onto an extensive ArcGIS Story Map. Several challenging issues arose with both the group research model and with local contacts the first summer, which we addressed with a second round of internships in 2023. Through a second summer with more focused guidance to address more environmental issues and non-represented groups and areas, interns have expanded the Story Map. The results with this ongoing project have been exemplary. Parr has categorized and arranged the interns’ work in a public-facing Story Map that has both educational and entertainment value. Anyone can take a virtual tour of the sites and learn multiple perspectives on New Hampshire places, landscapes, and individuals.
The group dynamic produced various challenges but can be utilized as a basis for future cross-institution collaboration. It also can help students better understand monuments and landscapes in their communities and may result in them being better wards of these landscapes in the future.
Atomic Sameness: Static Placemaking and Nuclear Dynamism
Rex J. Rowley – Illinois State University
Dozens of locations across the United States were impacted by the development and deployment of American atomic weapons. Some of these places—office and academic buildings once used in administration and research and whole towns that the government built from scratch for the Manhattan Project—continue to change along with the world around them. But a number of sites remain in intentionally static space. This essay explores two such places that represent two broad groups of static atomic sites: 1) underground atomic testing; and 2) storage sites for radioactive byproducts from the mining and processing of uranium for atomic weapons. Influencing the static nature of such places is a combination of intentional US government-led efforts to monitor and keep these sites unchanged in order to prevent potential contamination to the surrounding communities and the remoteness and inaccessibility of such locations. But another outcome is the creation of a number of static, distinct, and meaningful landscapes that reveal some of the untold stories from the atomic age making the static a dynamic force for place making for those who interact with the sites.
Challenges in the Bourbon Landscape
Richard Schein – University of Kentucky
This paper presents a foray into the geography of Bourbon Whiskey. It is focused on three controversies that have erupted around Bourbon Production: black mold, the barrel tax, and conditional use permits. These cases are situated in a brief review of Bourbon’s fledgling geographical literature and some suggestions for Bourbon Geographies research themes. The cases are grounded in a typology of the historical bourbon landscape derived from Karl Raitz’s historical geography of Bourbon’s nineteenth century roots. Finally, the cases are described and interpreted as political ecological, political economical, and planning challenges in the Kentucky landscape.
A Geographic Examination of Restorative Places
Jeffrey Smith – Kansas State University
Much of the world is in the midst of a mental health crisis with anxiety and depressive disorders up 25 percent over pre-pandemic levels. In the U.S., nearly 20 percent of adults suffer from a mental health disorder each year. Remedies range from an alphabet soup of pharmaceutical therapies to yoga. However, environmental psychologists assert that the human brain is wired to be outdoors and contact with nature is an effective pathway to personal well-being. Research on restorative environments began in the late 1950s and by the 1990s scholars began devoting considerable energy to understanding the ambient environmental conditions that promote physical and emotional restoration. Despite the growing body of literature, little research has delved into the historic and geographic background of locations used to restore the human condition. The purpose of this paper is to help fill that gap in the literature. I identify major milestones in U.S. history to illustrate how nature has been used (and thought of) as a place for physical, mental, and emotional restoration. This paper adds to existing literature by further exploring the nuances of the character of place.
Visualizing the Impact of Climate Change at Upper Treeline Across Rocky Mountain National Park, USA
Evan Talbott-Swain – University of Missouri
Climate change caused by anthropogenic forces has created unprecedented ecological change, including novel disturbance patterns, deteriorating ecosystem resilience, and altered vegetation composition of ecosystems globally. The impetus for these changes is heat-induced drought stress, or hotter drought, with unprecedented outbreaks of bark beetles across the Rocky Mountains. It remains unclear, however, whether upper treeline environments within Rocky Mountain National Park have been affected by these changes. In this study, I used repeat photography to compare present-day treeline with images from 1900 – 1996 across Rocky Mountain National Park. I re-took 12 photos from 9 different high-elevation locations (east of the Continental Divide) in Rocky Mountain National Park. Preliminary results show 1) bark beetle-induced mortality at upper treeline in 41.7% of photos (n = 5) and 2) treeline advance in 41.7% of photos (n = 5). These results suggest that bark beetle advancement may no longer be limited by temperature. These results have important implications for our understanding of climate impact on upper treeline dynamics and indicate that high elevation treelines are at risk to bark beetles. Moving forward, these results can be considered in conservation of high elevation forests.