Making History ---the American Way!

Vasan Sri

The USA is a young nation--hardly three
centuries old. It cannot show 4000 year old
monuments like pyramids , but only eroded
natural artifacts like the canyons or meteoritic
craters. So the Americans are in a great hurry
to build history from scraps of artifacts and
documents left by the generations of early
settlers and those who fought for its
independence and built colonies and homesteads
and later on , wagon trails and rail roads and
those unfortunate native Indian tribes.
Collecting items --whatever you could
find---including old signs and advertisement
bill boards and clothes of early settlers


---could add to the history in making. Family
albums and documents , including wills and bank
receipts and old photos can provide much needed
details of local value.
Part of the fun in antique collection is the
objects used [guns,hats, whips and so on] of
bank robbers scuh as Bonny an d Clyde during
their escapades.
You may not qualify as a great ancient
historian or archaelogist like Howard carter or
Suleiman when you dig in for buckles and shoes
of a train robber, but you can add color to the
stories told in that neighborhood to delight the
children and --if you are lucky, you can sell
them in auctions for a good sum.

In this process of creating history of the
past three centuries, Americans have built


several nice local history museums in almost all
towns and counties....These museums are a haven
for tired old men and women who wish to spend a
few hours everyday in the company of their
friends and exchange 'thoughts' about the local
activities such as "who started the elementary
school there?" and "who built the church at the
street corner. "

Local historians , especially in the South,
take great interest in collecting the ghost
stories and relate to the murders committed in
spooky homes, with police information and
newspaaper clippings. Some would relate these to
metaphysical concepts of 'life after death' and
psychic mediums help us with past residents who
are casual nocturnal visitors today.



A topic of perennial interest in building
local history is the facts of the Civil War
[1863-66] which was fought just 150 years ago.
Every picture or material of that period is
valuable and can tell a story. If you are keen
,you can write a thesis for your Ph d degree in
American History or go around with your
'exhibition' of pictures.
Closely related to this are the stories and
events relating to Afro-Americans who lived and
worked as slaves and their masters. A few photos
of ball and chains from the Souht can create a
sensation in your neighbourhood in Chicago or
Los Angeles. DNA testing has revealed many
'family connections' which people would call
'salacious' news items. The treatment of slaves
had its own interesting details of not only
cruelty ,but secret romances. Local historians


are keen on these matters mainly because they
tell us the 'human side' of the people who lived
there in those times and how new racial bonds
were created.
All these historical information of the past
two hundred years become the fodder for
novelists and writers of various genre. You may
not always write the 'great American novel' like
"Gone with the wind" which would hit the
box-office in movies, but certainly thousands of
short stories and pulp fiction of 'NY Times Best
seller' category could be generated and some may
even win a Pulitzer prize.
Again local historians speak of fur trade and
the trails of pioneers as they moved West to
build homes and colonies under harsh conditions.
The pioneering spirit has to be kept alive in
local museums so that young ones today take up


acts of courage and adventure amidst urban
squalor.
A great part of American history is linked to
the rail roads and the steam boat waterways.
ilearned about these from some of Mark Twain's
stories. The 'technical' details are fascinating
too...how the ingenious rail road 'engineers'
would kill a pig and use the lard to grease the
crankshafts and wheel axles along the way.!
The railroad replaced the 'pony express' for
delivering your mail.
When railroad connections were made, the clocks
did not synchronise---they had to be tuned and
soon clock-makers made special clocks for
railroads --approved by railroad
companies...this was a new height in horological
technology!
At the same time ,engineers were busy with


putting up telegraph poles and wire the nation.
Telegraphy had a great impact. Inventors like
Thomas Edison started their youthful careers on
telegraph key boards....Again Civil War
historians tell us that Abraham Lincoln used
telegraph lines for checking on his generals and
their progress the way the present President
may use the e-mails.
While the early settlers were avowed to
religious freedom, the various denominations of
Protestant faith---quakers, Presbyterians,
Episcoplaians,calvinists and others had bitter
rivalry and mild forms of persecution along the
farm fields. They moved about from one colony or
settlement to another like pieces on a
checkerboard. Each tried to find the one true
way to God, with their own version of the Bible
in hand , leaving aside the souls of the slaves


and marginal immigrants to their hellish fates.
Some preached eternal damnation while others
were lenient to the sins of the flesh. All the
books and preachings of this period make up a
large aprt of relgious hisory of the US before
several cults sprouted. The story of Mormons and
their migration to the Salt Lake City are
fascinating adventure dramas with human
touch,apart from polygamy practized with some
decency.One could add some foot notes to these
studies which are already overburdened with
details and scholarly annotations.
Every local historian should spend some time
in studying the arts and crafts of the local
people---how they stitched their clothes or
dyed them in colors, perhaps learned from the
native Indians and how they made pots and pans
and decorated their homes with china [porcelain


ceramic objects] and made quilts for babies. In
that process, they may discover some processes
which are relevant and viable today for
commercial purposes.
As a book lover, I would place a high value on
the books produced in those days with letter
press and brown or sepia inks--anything that
could be traced to Ben Franklin productions.They
are really museum pieces and could be treasured
like old fossils.
To sum up, even though the American history is
pretty short compared to World History, there is
much to be explored,cataloged,archived ,restored
and preserved that would shed light on the human
aspects of this country and would delight the
future generations with nuggets of wisdom too
easily forgotten by not learning from them.
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