In The Other Suburbanites, Wiese's focuses on the insurgence of blacks living in neighborhood residences specifically during the years following World War II using Chagrin Falls Park in Cleveland as his focus. In what is clearly an exhaustive study, he blends oral history with research and portrays both about equally. From first hand accounts, it is learned, for example, that building a home was particularly rough for black families and required a lot of help from the community in what Wiese refers to as an "ethic of neighborly aid" (p 1506). Since those who lived in the residences struggled with poverty, their "rustic" landscape had to make more use of rudimentary services than in upper class divisions. This in turn served to perpetuate white racism. Still, settling in Chagrin Falls Park gave many blacks their first chance at buying and building their own property to avoid renting. This was clearly an important stepping stone towards acculturation and overcoming racial barriers.
The use of oral history in Wiese's study truly helps to get an understanding of the individuals who lived there. It is one thing to read a study strictly written by someone who is articulate and adept at theses with several years of college under his/her belt and a couple of degrees. It evokes much different emotions, however, when significant oral history is interspersed throughout and especially if it is riddled with grammatical incorrectness. Observing such statements as "wasn't nobody could buy in the city" (p 1514) and "haven't got any money" (p 1506) induces similar feelings as if watching a documentary with interviewees giving testimony. The responses are raw and unedited and thus show true character.
To me, that shows a bit of irony within historiographic writings. As student historians we write term papers, theses, and dissertations and then toil tirelessly over every marginal inch, sentence structure, and punctuation mark. We double check to make sure that page numbers are in the upper left hand corner for this professor, but in the lower right hand corner for that professor. We face humility and embarrassment by having our peers read over our rough drafts only made possible by weeks without sunlight and countless ounces of caffeine, only to have them rip it to shreds with red ink so that we can then turn around and rinse and repeat until we get it right. All of this to make sure that the story, research, and study we are presenting is done cleanly, correctly, flawlessly, and professionally with the hope that our readers will be captivated and mesmerized. Meanwhile, Wiese's oral history project and many others like it take raw, unedited statements from living witnesses and paste them into their written work in its most archaic and rudimentary format and evoke that same dazzlement.
Interesting.
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3 comments:
Adam, interesting point about writing for clarity and the difference between primary source writings and the writing of professional historians. Academia certainly has its own vocabulary, language patterns, and grammatical guidelines. Academic language is intended to provide clarity to those within the discourse. By using the same code we hope to understand each other with as little variation on interpretation as possible. Language, of course, is imperfect and unable to always adequately express our thoughts. The problem with academic code is that it does set up barriers, restricting those who may participate in its discourse. It also tends to obscure individual expression. Is this a problem? Certainly. But if everyone wrote in their own code - if I wrote in Dutch and Michigan slang and others wrote in Southern English slang, we , and everyone else, would have even less of change of understanding each other. To bridge the gap between idiosyncratic language, we tend towards a standard dialect or form new language.
Mike,
Thanks for bringing that up.
I definitely understand the need for the editing of drafts and maintaining a consistent language throughout different works, I was just observing how the rawest of material seems just as effective as the most edited, when used correctly of course.
As a student of Military History Master I, whose organ tutor is the Academic Vice President of the Military University of Venezuela, and expressing through these lines the way to bring the world the story of past events that have happened in the society and that marked the passing of time, in a fun, different, where texts and articles possibly remained in dusty libraries and only were cherished and read by very closed groups of intellectuals. Today come to light and can be read and reread by millions of people of different nationalities, ages, and remain immortal, thanks to the work of experts who patiently scanned with specific techniques for the treatment and care of old books.
An example corresponds native digitized 63 volumes, divided in the "Travel", "French Revolution" and "negotiations", the 32 thousand pages of manuscripts of Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Rodriguez, as well as historian and philosopher explained Carmen Bohorquez during the launch of web portal www.franciscodemiranda.org, and so all those who wish to access these documents through the web, traveling back in time to enter the second half of the seventeenth and early XIX.
Since 1771, once it comes out of La Guaira, Francisco de Miranda was collecting documents from his personal life and his political project. Later, in 1810, and once it returns to Venezuela, makes resulting in 63 bound volumes.
Foundation work ethically and through the internet become Historical Heritage, endorsed guiding principles and values of Education, established in Law (2009), such as:
... The equality of all citizens without discrimination of any kind, training for independence, freedom and empowerment, appreciation and defense of sovereignty, training in a culture of peace, social justice, respect for human rights, the practice of equity and inclusion, and the sustainability of development, the right to gender equality, strengthening national identity ... (Art. 3)
Great men engaged in research of history remained anonymous, his manuscripts never came to light, most of the time did not have sponsorship for his book, or worse, were in dire need of giving their research to other representatives of renowned fame charged with years of efforts and other studies.
Thanks to cyberspace many researchers can post their scientific work, through portals, blog, likewise, may be associated with websites that specialize in offering digital books at affordable prices and in different languages, simply magical.
Otherwise, the call is also presented historical garbage in portals that modify the content of historical facts, a convenience to erase the legacy and sense of belonging of the people of a nation. Therefore, to get into the information superhighway, my very humble recommendation is to search pages or sites that are administered by universities or recognized organizations, as well as historians everlasting.
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