Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America

Introduction

INil~CI)lJC:iICN MY ADVENT IN A LITTLE TOWN OFTEN CREATED A SENSATION, ESPECIALLY WHEN I TOOK A CHAIR AND SITTING IN IT IN THE CENTER OF A STREET FOR AN HOUR OR MORE, TOOK A SKETCH. "WHAT IS THAT - - FOOL DOING THERE IN A CHAIR?" WAS NOT AN UNCOMMON QUERY FROM THOSE WITHIN MY EAR-SHOT. A KNOT GENERALLY GATHERED AROUND ME, AND THUS WAS I PROTECTED FROM BEING RUN OVER BY SOME PASSING VEHICLE. - HENRY HOWE, HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO ' hen Henry Howe wrote these humorous words more than a century ago, he spoke from more than forty years' experience as a chronicler ofAmerican townscapes. Those of us who record small towns today, camera in hand, get much the same reaction ; people often ask questions such as "What do you find so interesting about this town?" As a historian, Henry Howe instinctively knew that all communities possess interesting stories. Inspired by one of America's first recorders of the visual landscapes of small towns, John Warner Barber, Howe devoted his life to recording the landscapes and history of what we now call "ordinary places." Both Barber and Howe were New Englanders, and, according to Howe, Barber's 1838 Historical Collections of Connecticut "came upon the people like magic," for "few had ever seen pictures of places with which they were acquainted." 1 Following in Barber's footsteps , and on occasion even working with him, Henry Howe became an observer whose passion for observing, recording, and interpreting small towns remains an inspiration to the current day. xviii 1 Introduction During his nearly-century-Iong lifetime (1816-1913), Henry Howe had ample opportunity to observe great changes in the American landscape. As recorded in Howe's many histories, America's towns reflected the development and prosperity ofthe country.2 For Howe, the commercial centers of towns - what we today call "Main Street" - became the showplaces of the American towns he depicted. When illustrating his histories, he most often included lithographs of Main Street as an indicator of the conditions in the community and the progress that had taken place between widely separated dates such as 1847 and 1887. Two observers of the small town recently noted, "The viability of a small town's Main Street gives a good indication of the overall health of a community." 3 Even in Howe's time, a community's Main Street was a visible manifestation of its business and political activity, its life in particular, and American life in general. Only in the relatively recent past have we separated Main Street from Wall Street. Whereas Wall Street today symbolizes large corporate transactions and Main Street symbolizes the everyday locales and the merchants and entrepreneurs who are affected by what seem to be increasingly centralized (and arbitrary) decisions, in the early nineteenth century they were one. Although Main Street symbolized progress to Howe's generation, to us it now symbolizes the past and perhaps the alleged sanctity and security that were part of earlier, slower times. In the century and a half since Henry Howe wrote his first histories, "Main Street" has come to symbolize a place close to the people, people who have few pretenses and honest aspirations ; and because it fuses images of place and time, it also symbolizes their past. Small wonder, then, that Main Street is easily romanticized and has become one of America's most cherished images. And yet, because Main Street is such a cherished icon for small-town America, it has also become a rallying point for cultural critics who see it as embodying petty concerns. Scholars - some critical and others laudatory of small towns - now realize that Main Street shows no signs of disappearing. The enduring popularity of Main Street has witnessed its becoming a part of Americans' everyday thoughts and conversations. Thus, a recent advertisement in a model builder's magazine noted, "Every town has a Main Street USA, and everyone has memories of the 'Main Street' in his or her hometown."4 As if to exemplify the adaptability of Main Street as a concept, it is significant that WordPerfect's new "Main Street Program," Introduction [ xix as advertised in a recent issue of Family Fun magazine, invites the reader to "move your playroom to Main Street" with the reassuring words that "there's no better place for kids to play than on WordPerfect® Main Street." 5 As both a place and a...