Road Trips Through History was a collection of thoughts, opinions, and memories by preservationist Dwight Young. Through personal essays, Young takes the reader into the heart of what preservation is as a discipline and reflects on often surprising topics that I personally never thought of as related to historic preservation. Rather than portraying preservation in an abstract, academic way, Young seeks to make it relevant to all by encouraging people to see history and meaning in the world around us, not just in historic buildings and places.
Reading these collections, I was struck by how personable and open Young sounded. I felt as if I was reading his diary rather than essays he intentionally meant to be published. I saw this as a definite plus because I was able to gather his voice from the writing. With the pithy blurbs in parenthesis and his musings, I saw his own personal voice come through clearly and often in delightful ways. It definitely made me want to meet him and spend time traveling with him taking advantage of the pleasure for detail he possessed in places like New Orleans and Russia.
In addition to his written personal touches, I truly enjoyed his overall message of the collection. This message is that historic preservation should not be about just preserving physical buildings but about preserving history as a collective whole. It should be about preserving that which excites and interests us (in his case, Ocean Liner ephermera...who knew?). His discussion about the starry night sky seemed odd to me at first but once I finished reading the essay I understood what Young was trying to get at. He defines preservation as protecting that which is meaningful to us and to our history. For him, the night sky he saw as a little boy in Texas was the same night sky that Indians and our forefathers saw centuries ago. Certainly that makes it worthy of protection against “light trespass.”
In his essay “Seeing it, saving it,’ Young also maintains that historic preservation is so enduring because it provides people with tactile encounters with history. Homes in which people have lived for centuries, putting their mark in small indelible ways, fascinates most people because it makes the home less a historic artifact and more real, as Young put it. I can certainly relate to his love of books that have been previously owned and I too am always interested in notes, pictures, and markings made by people who I have never met before. Having those personal touches makes it more special to me and allows me to embark on that person’s history. Historic preservation works in much the same way in which houses are preserved not because of their physical structure, but because of the people who lived in it and the mark they made upon the physical structure.
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3 comments:
I agree with your post. For Young, historic preservation isn't limited to preserving a structure, it's preserving a history, a memory, or whatever's significant to the person who is saving it. I think for Young historic preservation is the act of treasuring something, kind of like how you and Young treasure your old books filled with strangers' cooments and thoughts. Or how Pamela Cunningham treasured Mount Vernon, or that crazy (but right) woman treasured the art deco structures of Miami.
Like you, I felt that his writing style allows the reader to have a better understanding of his appreciation for historic preservation. Never throughout his writing did I feel overwhelmed with facts or even his opinion. Although his articles were sprinkled with his witticisms and sarcastic remarks, I never felt that Young's sense of humor detered from the main argument on the overall importance and awesomeness of preservation. Instead, I feel that he has written articles that can be accessible and understood by many. Because he let his true emotions write the articles, readers are able to relate more to that rather than cold hard facts. It was truly an amazing read!
I agree about Young's sense of humor and his personal approach being a positive aspect of his writing. The wit and sarcasm almost seem to make it more personal and humane, easier to grasp. There is definetly nothing cold or distant about these pieces.
I wonder if that would hold true if he wrote more than short essays? Is it the format that allowed him to feel free to add a personal touch to his essays on historic preservation? Or is it because he's writing about a passionate subject for himself as he even says he was born to it.
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