American Landscapes and Artefacts
Author: Marina Moskowitz
If you wanted to show someone what your day-to-day life is like—not tell them, but show them—what would you choose to give an idea of your daily routine? Your mobile phone? An iPod? Your rail card? Or, instead of showing them a particular object, you might take them to a particular place— one where you spend a lot of time, like your favourite coffee shop, or a football pitch, your school, or your room at home. You'd probably tell them why whatever you chose was important to you, but even if you didn't say a word, and just showed them, they'd probably learn something about you, and the various communities surrounding you.
This process of learning about people by looking closely at the things they make, acquire, and use, and the places they inhabit and visit, is an important part of American Studies. The physical artefacts and traces produced by a society or nation is known as its material culture. American material culture is almost limitless in scope - everything from a Coke bottle to a fine silver teapot, from a Native American canoe to a railroad car, or from a Barbie doll to a Blackberry. To learn more about a particular facet of American society, or the nation as a whole, we can examine objects from any period in American history, any region of the vast country, and from any social, ethnic, racial, or class group.
One reason for investigating material culture is because it seems like a democratic way of studying historical and cultural groups. We often use written documents to study the past, but of course not everyone can read and write, and even if they could, they might not be in a social, economic, or political position to leave their own record. But everyone comes into contact with some objects in their lifetime, whether clothing, food, tools, toys, furniture, or loads of other categories. Sometimes these artefacts are saved from generation to generation, either within a family, or traded as antiques and collectibles, or placed in a museum. Other times, objects are thrown away, in which case we might lose all trace of them, or, we might be lucky enough that pieces of them are found on archaeological sites. But even knowing whether something was cherished or discarded tells us a lot about the people who made and used it. Some artefacts are revealing because they belonged to or were made by an important historical figure, but others are just as crucial because they represent the everyday life of average Americans.
The material world of the United States includes not just artefacts but environments that have been created or preserved by different groups of Americans over time. The term built environment is often used to mean any landscape that has been affected by humans. Buildings are important elements: the White House in Washington DC, a seventeenth-century farmhouse in New England, or Alcatraz prison—each can tell us something about the country and the people who designed and used these buildings. But there are other aspects to the built environment, from local streets to airplane runways to agricultural fields to Disneyworld. Even places that are natural wonders, like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, often have been partly shaped by human intervention; the decision to preserve and protect a landscape in its 'natural' state tells us about the priorities of the people who made that decision.
American material culture is also present in our everyday life, in the form of food, music, books, and cultural imports; some historical examples are available in British museums, or on eBay; and still others we will need to study through photographs and pictures. American landscapes are of course harder to 'import'—although there are quirky examples, like a neighbourhood of American portable houses built at Longbridge outside of Birmingham during World War I and still standing today. But we can also look at maps, photographs, architectural drawings, and movies to discover American landscapes. And, even better, if you choose to pursue American Studies, you may well have the opportunity to go to the United States, and see those landscapes for yourself!
