At Odds with Progress: Americans and Conservation

Abstract

The dozen essays in Sense of Place honor the contributions of Lynwood Montell to understanding the folklore of the Upper Cumberland region of Kentucky and Tennessee.The subjects range geographically from Oregon to Maryland's Eastern Shore and topically from fur trapping to pioneer cemeteries.All are connected, however, by attention to a sense of place, particularly, as Barbara Allen states it, to understanding "how people construct a sense of place, of region, for themselves through cultural expression" (12).Readers interested in the Midwest will find the collection of considerable utility.The overview essays by Barbara Allen and Thomas J. Schlereth constitute thoughtful introductions to the major themes and to the scholarly literature of regionalism, particularly in the disciplines of folklore and American studies.One of the essays relates directly to an interesting part of midwestern culture, the tornadoes and the stories about them that give midwesterners a particularly vivid sense of place.Tornado stories, Larry Danielson argues, allow for displaying "a covert pride in coping with and surviving such an unpredictable and potentially dangerous climate" (39).Other essays, on subjects further removed from Iowa or the Midwest, will nonetheless be of interest for revealing the complexities of regional cultures.The dualities, contradictions, and paradoxes within virtually all regions should make anyone cautious about generalizations for a place as large and diverse as the Midwest or even Iowa.And yet, as these essays show, regional identity, with its sense of us and them, runs through American culture.To assume a homogeneous nation and an American character without attention to this sense of place is to misread seriously the lessons of these essays.