Preconceptions and Perceptions
I did not want to write this post on Gettysburg. I’ve been dreading it for some time, but now it’s time, and I have to write it.
Gettysburg marks the place of one of the primary events in American history: the end of the farthest advance for the Confederacy, the turning point for the war that saved the Union, a war whose dead were honored in one of the greatest speeches ever given on American soil. This post should be an amateur historian’s dream.
But I can’t write about any of that. Instead, my mind goes to stuff like this:
Land Use: The Second Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg, Ground Zero: Secular Sacred Spaces
For years, I’ve been reading about overdevelopment near Gettysburg. Story after story, anecdote after anecdote, describing all the fast-food restaurants, shopping plazas, and apartment blocks rising up near the Hallowed Ground. The despoilment of the views, the crush of traffic, the smell of greasy, fatty fried foods wafting through the monuments. When I finally made it to central Pennsylvania, I had all that … stuff … in my head. And that’s exactly what I saw, exactly what I smelled, exactly what I felt. Every time I stopped to read a memorial to a state’s militia, I saw parking lots. Every time I tried to contemplate the pained or foolish decisions of a military commander, a billboard loomed in the background. Every time I wanted to quietly ponder the fate of a slaughtered battalion, I smelled the unforgettable, rancid stink of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was distracted and ultimately disappointed by my visit.
But then an odd thing happened. In researching this post, I decided to do a little googlemapping. A couple of clicks later, I found something amazing: the stretch of developed road, the concentration of fast-food restaurants, the prevalent strip-malls, are really only in a small corner of the park. I then drove to the park again, years after my first trip, to see it again for myself. Now that I have a few more historical park visits behind me, I feel I can honestly say Gettysburg isn’t that bad. Which begs the question: is this level of development really an impingement on Gettysburg, or is all the press about the impingement on Gettysburg causing an impression on the visitors that isn’t necessarily true?
I have to be honest with you and with myself: as smart as I think I am, as impartially observant as I want to be, as factual and non-judgmental as I should be, I am still a human being, and I can still be influenced by the media, by public opinion, by emotion, and by rumor. I now think that’s what happened during my first visit to Gettysburg, and alas, those preconceptions effectively ruined my trip.
The problem of “paving over our history” is real. Every year, more historically significant sites and buildings are demolished, defaced, or allowed to fall into decay. There are reports of this all over the country, from adobe churches in New Mexico to the World Trade Center Vesey Sreet staircase. They even want to build a casino near Gettysburg (a terrible idea in my opinion). We’re losing or despoiling our heritage. It’s a sad thing.
Or is it?
Like all great ideas, the desire to protect our historical heritage can be taken too far. We can’t stagnate, we have to continue to make progress, and change is part of progress. I once read there is no stability, no steady-state, there is no maintaining the way things are (or were). There is only advancement through change, or there is entropy and decay. The battle of Gettysburg was fought around the existing village of Gettysburg, it would have been unfair to prevent that village from growing over time simply to preserve a battlefield. If we try to hold things close, try to latch on to the past, try to keep everything the same, we’ll never move forward, and succumb to entropy and decay. The town of Gettysburg would have died in the name of “preservation”.
When it comes to history, it is important that we preserve what is truly important, the sites that mark the true turning-point events, sites that can teach our generation and all the future generations, and put the continuing story of America into the proper context. But we can’t preserve everything that once was, because then we’d have no room for what will come. Historic preservation is like every other good idea: it can be taken too far.
But can we at least get rid of some of the KFCs out there?
[Again, I visited this site before I got a digital camera. Everything’s from the National Archives. I know this post isn’t what some of you may have expected. Trust me, I love Civil War history. Check out my Antietam and Chickamauga posts.]
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Links:
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Historic Preservation: Gentrification or Economic Development
America In Context 