Barnstorming the Prairies by Jason Weems (review)

In this thought-provoking and engaging book, Jason Weems analyzes how the aerial view shaped American views of the Midwest and the relationship between Midwesterners and the land during the tumultuous decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Drawing heavily on Joseph Corn's foundational cultural study in the history of aviation, The Winged Gospel, Weems deftly interweaves political history, artistic critique, geography, and modernity studies to argue that "the new sight lines actualized by aviation composed a new episteme of vision that enabled Americans to reconceptualize their region amid the shifting culture and technology of the twentieth century" (x). While this new way of viewing offered by the airplane—a shift in perception that Weems encompasses within the term "aeriality"—initiated new ways to reconceptualize the region, Midwesterners were not simply passive recipients to a process imposed upon them from on high. Rather, as the nation seemed inexorably propelled by uncontrollable and nebulous forces in the interwar period, the airplane became a focal point through which Midwesterners actively sought to reconcile the promises of modernity with the Jeffersonian worldview at the center of their identity.

In four thematic chapters, Weems demonstrates how the aerial view transformed a region often derided today as "flyover country" into a primary arena in the debate over what it meant to be American in an increasingly technological age. Chapter One details how the right angles of the grid pattern established under the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the embellished bird's eye view enabled nineteenth century settlers to translate the vastness of the American Plains into a comprehensible and manageable space. Chapter Two focuses on how the Agricultural Adjustment Administration's aerial photographic survey became a central element of New Deal Era attempts to readjust the economic and social patterns of Midwestern life to address environmental degradation. Although federal officials emphasized their expertise and authority to interpret these realistic images of the terrain below, farmers asserted their own agency as they reconciled suggestions to farm "on the curve" with the established grid pattern that had become central to the region's identity. Drawing upon his expertise as an art historian, Weems's analysis of the work of landscape artist Grant Wood in Chapter Three provides a more intimate look at how the aerial view simultaneously sparked a reformulation of modern Midwestern identity and offered new perspectives through which to express it. Chapter Four concentrates on Wisconsin architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre project—and its relationship to the urban visions of contemporaries Le Corbusier and Lewis Mumford—to examine how the aerial view stimulated new ideas regarding the relationship between the city and countryside, particularly how to best reconcile the social and economic dynamism of the former with the individual freedom and connection to the natural world embodied in the latter.

Weems's has crafted a cultural history that should speak to a wide audience. In showing the airplane's central role in reconfiguring perceptions of the Midwest in the interwar period, Weems calls our attention to the power of modern technologies to shape the way we see ourselves, society, and the world.