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

Section 1. Time and Main Street: The Origins and Evolution of an Image

1: ilMI: J~NI) MJ~IN Sil~I:I:i The Origins and Evolution of an Image THE PLACES WE HAVE KNOWN DO NOT BELONG ONLY TO THE LITTLE WORLD OF SPACE ON WHICH WE MAP THEM FOR OUR OWN CONVENIENCE. NONE OF THEM WAS EVER MORE THAN A THIN SLICE, HELD BETWEEN THE CON~IGUOUS IMPRESSIONS THAT COMPOSED OUR LIFE AT THAT TIME; THE MEMORY OF A PARTICULAR IMAGE IS BUT REGRET FOR A PARTICULAR MOMENT; AND HOUSES, ROADS, AVENUES ARE AS FUGITIVE, ALAS, AS THE YEARS. - MARCEL PROUST, SWANN'S WAY ain Street, like all places, has developed its personality and identity through time. As it is now commonly understood , the term "Main Street" signifies the built-up commercial area, or downtown, ofsmall communities. Geographers and planners know it as the "Central Business District" (or CBD); economists call it the "commercial core"; writers portray it as the "heart" ofthe town. For more than two centuries, writers and travellers have commented on the look or appearance of towns, and in particular the downtown, where civic and commercial buildings fronted on important streets. A century and a half ago, James Fenimore Cooper understood the importance of Main Street when he wrote that "everywhere a country presents its best face towards its thoroughfares." J In the later nineteenth century, Americans learned about their towns from the many illustrated newspapers and atlases that flourished during the Victorian era. Issues of the popular periodicals, including Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, often contained beautiful lithographs, woodcuts, and steel engravings of small-town scenes; typically, Main Street was prominent among them (fig. 1). The art and science of photog- 2 1 Time and Main Street Figure 1. The Main Street ofEl Paso, Texas, 1890, as it appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, reveals a corridor of activity - the street - framed by commercial buildings. Although El Paso was urbanizing rapidly at this time and would later become a city of 600,000 people, the street at the time conveyed the atmosphere of a bustling Victorian-era town of about 10,000 people. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper , Texas edition, 1890; courtesy Special Collections, the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. raphy flourished in the late nineteenth century, and most towns were recorded for posterity by local or itinerant photographers. Among the most popular ofsubjects was a Main Street filled with activity: market day, parades, and other festivals were often immortalized as the photographer recorded the scene and then emerged from the darkroom with a record of Main Street at its busiest (fig. 2). During the golden years of the American postcard (1890-1920), when people communicated on the reverse side of photographic images of everyday scenes, Main Street was a common vignette (fig. 3). As depicted in the many photograph and postcard collections that preserve these images, Main Street is always recognizable by the buildings that line it; most are rather elaborately detailed and formal, distinctive enough in style to command our attention and interest. Architecturally, Main Street is characterized by a repetition of individual buildings that have faces or "personalities" determined by their massing, window and Time and Main Street [ 3 Figure 2. The drama on the Main Street ofRufus, in eastern Oregon, was recorded as locals posed and horses and wagons crowded the wide thoroughfare to deliver sacked grain to the railroad about 1880. Trees have been planted on Main Street to soften the impact of the barren central Oregon prairie. This magnificent photographic image preserved the events - and the appearance of the streetscape - for posterity. W A. Raymond, Bettmann Archive. door openings, rooRines, and other elements cited by architectural historians . Some ofthese buildings may convey an impression of"Main Street" more readily than others, for in reality most Main Streets consist not of one type or style of buildings but of several styles that were developed through time. Although most of the buildings on Main Street are usually 4 1 Time and Main Street MAIN ST. EAST. "ARlfORD. Figure l A postcard ofMain Street East, Hartford, Michigan, ca. 1900, reveals a familiar landscape: a street defined by TOWS ofhighly detailed Victorian commercial buildings. The trees mark the end ofthe commercial district and the beginning ofresidences. Thousands of postcard scenes helped immortalize otherwise typical and anonymous small towns. Postcard originally published by Will P. Canaan Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan;authors collection. less than three stories in height (resulting in a streetscape...