Transcripts For CSPAN3 Rural Midwest History 20240714

She challenges the notion that the midwest is merely a collection of flyover states, s collections. On this talk is part of the fifth annual midwestern conference hosted by the helen stein center at granville university. Good morning. My name is eric. I am an associate professor of africanamerican studies and history at the university of illinois or vanish and pain. Urbana champaign. Ours my honor to introduce keynote speaker, my friend and colleague, dr. Kristin hoganson. She is professor of United States history at the university of illinois at urbana champaign. She specializes in the history of the United States, cultures of u. S. Imperialism, transnational history, and the midwest. Professor hoganson has enjoyed a productive and accomplished academic career sense achieving her phd in history from yale in 1995. Following graduate school, she taught at harvard for five years before accepting a position in history at the university of illinois. In terms of her professional service, she is the Vice President for the society of historians for American Foreign relations. Dr. Hoganson is the author of several books. I will note her First Published book, fighting for american manhood how gender politics provoked the spanish, philippine universitye press, 1998. The professors journey to American History is an intriguing one. Raised in the washington dc area, she arrived in the midwest in 2000 after taking a job at u of i. Er many east coast people and i was trying to find a diplomatic way to say east coast people like many east coast people who relocate to the region, she presumed upon arriving in her new home that the midwest was isolated and recently homogeneous. Illinois central disabused her of this prevailing ash of rural heartland heteronormative whiteness. She quickly discovered after listening to crop reports on local public radio stations about Soybean Production in argentina and country Invasive Species of plants in her own backyard from the u. K. And elsewhere, and learning about the overseas travels of longtime residents, recently arrived immigrants and refugees who made champaign or banner home, that it was hardly provincially white. The heartland she observed was a globally connected heterogeneous place whose form and shape has been remade by transnational forces. Heartland, inthe new booktory the heartland an American History shatters the prevailing myth of the midwest as the Symbolic Center of national mythologies. Beautifully written, well researched and provocative. Her brilliant monograph uses portraits of native americans and the changing environment and centrality of the region to the making of u. S. Empire to highlight the rural midwest importance and heterogeneity. In the introduction, she articulate the key question driving her book. What is the nation at heart when we unbind it from myth . Answering this question required her to look at the origins and contemporary meaning of the myth. One of the books most provocative insertions, she emphatically concludes locality began in the heartland, as elsewhere in the United States, as an ideology of conquest. An ideology of conquest. The long histories of settler colonialism, white supremacy, empire and hetero patriarchy that informed the midwest continued to inform contemporary uslife. Then from her new book, view from the middle of everywhere, surely will set the tone and informed the direction of this conference. Without further ado, i would like to introduce this mornings keynote speaker, dr. Kristin hoganson. Thank you. [applause] dr. Hoganson it is really a pleasure to get caught up with him. I also should note i see enough of him to know his book will be a must read account on garvey is him in the midwest that will position it as a crossroads of africanamerican diaspora history. I would like to repeat the praise for whitneys role in organizing this conference and inviting me, and also to thank scott st. Louis for his tireless work on organizing the conference. I came last year to this conference for the first time and had a fabulous time. It was a great honor and pleasure to be invited back to deliver this address. Midwesternay, the History Association found a fantastic partner in its efforts to advance the study of this region. So speaking of overlooked regions brings me to the topic of my talk, flyover states. Top urbanom the dictionary definition, flyover states are states in the United States middle that generally are flown over when traveling from coast to coast. The second definition in the urban dictionary provides more detail, a flyover state is one that most americans see only from the window of an airplane as they fly back and forth between the countrys major east and west coast cities. These states find themselves like this because they are landlocked, have small populations and lack interesting attractions. The term is used pejoratively by the ever mentioned coastal dwellers with the implication that the residents of those states are less cultured and educated. Inave to note the definition urban dictionary spelled pejoratively run. Wrong. [laughter] regardt the coast who the midwest as less cultural have never been to one of these meetings. I suspect i am not alone to believe the term flyover states reveals the provincialism of rather than the people on the ground. I use this term because its white circulation has entrenched certain assumptions wide circulation has entrenched surgeon a substance about the midwest. Its assumed lack of interesting attractions has further cut it off from the world by keeping selfprofessed cosmopolitans away. The term flyover states suggests in sum that the midwest is best regarded through an airplane window, that there is no reason to land. Visas options are part of a larger cluster of ideas about the midwest and the urbanachampaign midwest the those who associate the rural heartland with exclusionary and small minded impulses think it has symbolized the country for far too long. Americans tend to mythologize the heartland as especially local, insulated, isolationist, and provincial. My just this myth in published book, the heartland an American History. Starting takes as a point what might seem to be one of the last focal places, a rural midwestern county, the years between colonial contestations and the u. S. Rise to superpower status, that is belong 19th century. That county happens to be where i live, champaign illinois. My starting point is by no means my ending point, because the book uncovers the hidden histories of Foreign Relations that have played an Important Role in constituting the seemingly all american heartland. My Research Uncovered an array of relationships pertaining to human mobility, economically, political activity, and ecological systems, that have analogues across the midwest. Among other topics, the book addresses locality on the part geographies, including the people they forced out. I will give you as an example the case of the native american nation, who at the time of in thess arrival lived windsor ontario area. Following the violence of the first trade, many of those fur trade, many of those people ended up in central illinois. They wereh century, violently forced out of illinois, relocating to keynes has an Oklahoma Kansas and oklahoma. Some of the people went as far andh a ne as mexico, still have a presence to this day. The green shading on the map indicates their geographies in the 19th century. I explored commodity webs in which the farmers of champagne were enmeshed. This is to prompt you think about things like beef production, which linked the ,idwest to ontario and mexico where animals for fattening purposes came from the midwest. These animals who were often exported to great britain, the most lucrative market of the day. The other illustration is of pig breeding. The point is to indicate that a lot of the genetic material is important. Is imported. Some of the most popular lines had chinese ancestry coming through britain. You can see the evolution of the animal. You can pick it up and eat it. The importation of animal material extended to chickens and even to the honeybees that crisscross the midwest. Italian bees where the most popular ones imported in the 19th century. With the exception of the major grains and food crops were also imported from outside of north america additionally in the 19th century. My book also eliminates the type of former Border Crossing alliances farmer Border Crossing alliances that rural people participated in. This fight shows one of the sample plant carrying boxes that the bureau of foreign plant introduction was urging bio prospectors to use. This picture is from the university of illinois yearbook, which shows foreign students coming to study agriculture in the 20th century, including from south asia, from china, and from mexico. Taken together, these chapters convey a different sense of locality than the inward looking histories as they fit in selfevident units. By focusing on relationships, they bring to light a variety of scales that can help us understand the american heartland more in terms of circulation than insularity. My book, like erics, is part of a wider effort to think about global context. Even as the chapters i just illustrate farflung connections, they dont capture how people in the midwest relate to the world. I focused on aerial consciousness. Writings on the midwest have often associated land with fixity and water with sen. Rounds . With set routes. As has a different quality cold war scholarship on bombs and satellite followed has suggested. The other reason i decided to focus on aerial consciousness was because of the flyover country trope i started with. Though tossed around casually, the idea of flyover states fits with theories that elevated tospectives convey power, obtain information vital for control. Empowerment, falling from a heightened ofspective with the cache mobility, the flyover slur packs for all its claims of power and privilege, the view from the air misses what is happening on the ground. Despite their claims of worldliness, those who see the midwest only from the sky have at best a superficial view. It is not just the details they miss, it is entire infrastructures. From the sky, it is hard to detect massive engineering works. Tilesles of clay drainage that turned prairie into some of the most valuable Agricultural Land are buried six feet underground. Themap shows some of draining ditches and tiling systems of northern champaign county. The picture on the lower right shows the clay tiles buried underground to fasttrack water out to the gulf of mexico. There is enough tile laid in illinois alone to circle the earth six times. The emphasis on the downward view implicit in jokes about flyover states not only provides a limited perspective, it overlooks the possibility that air travelers do not monopolize aerial consciousness. Ehe possibility that the gaz might go the other way would demand a different term, flown over states perhaps. How to capture the view from the ground as it appeared a century ago . What archival collection would review the worldviews of people who rarely sat down to write about themselves . The illinois digital newspaper collection is one place to start. Among the papers scanned into this database is the urbana courier. This can be a frustrating source, because some issues are missing and most of the text cannot be reliably searched. Keyword after keyword, the carrier has been a source and generous provider of leads. The more i delved into it, the more it appears areal consciousness has a history that can be tracked well before the cold war. Let us begin with wires. The most quotidian way air suggested contact was through community genting for structure. Following behind railroad construction, using the railroad rightofway, telegraph wires connected champagne by the 1850s to a network extending as far as russia and india. In addition to speeding up emergency notices and urgent communications, the telegraph revolutionized the transmission of news. Instead of obtaining longdistance information primarily from the publications through the post, papers such as the courier got it from press syndicates that pooled resources from wired reports. Reveling in its connectedness, the courier attributed reports of Distance Affairs to the means of transmission, the wire. The next breakthrough on the communications front, telephone, had an aerial dimension, since most of the wiring was strong from pole to pole. The bell system computed in a breakneck race for customers. By 1905, more than half the hads farms in the county telephone connections. The rapid proliferation of poles led to complaints of laziness. This led of laziness. Noisyness. Poles became tied to conventional violence when one town lynched an africanamerican man from a telephone pole. The wires too posed a threat. When they came down in tangled messes storm after storm, tragedy often followed. Dangerous,y and people tolerated these wires because of the connections they provided. Next came the wireless. By 1911, the county had its first wireless plant. The appeal of wireless stretched beyond those in the Communications Business to amateurs. Trend spotters may have noticed something was afoot by 1910 when the courier ran a story of Frank Scoggins adventure. While experimenting with a wireless appliance on the top of his house, scroggins fell from the top of his home. The next time his efforts made the newspaper, it was from falling from a tree. By 1915, amateur operators did not have to risk their neck because the county posted several wireless clubs. The entry into world war i the brakes on radio. To keep the airwaves clear and prevent espionage, which was a concern in the midwest, the radio inspector in chicago shut down all interior wireless stations for the duration of the war. After the war, radio fans reassembled their school clubs and Radio Associations. Catering to the growing market for wireless supplies, several shops in the county advertised their radio wares. Although radio operation remained a hobby for the few, its footprint was larger do to news part due to newsprint coverage. Wind there was used to utuners for longdistance communications. To operate a wireless meant to participate in a world of connectivity, a world where messages flashed from San Francisco to japan, from australia to germany by 1917. Though such records remained out of reach by the radio operators of champaign, wireless opened extensive channels. The Western Union wire messages from guantanamo, havana, and transatlantic liners. The boys of the Champaign High School radio club intercepted messages from newfoundland to florida. These operators could communicate directly with people beyond the 1000 mile mark, indeed behind the boundaries of the nation. For these early amateur radio operators, the point was not so much the contents of steamship chatter as the ability to access it. Yet the message from world war i, that connectivity had bearing on power, the open access from the air could be used subversively, was not forgotten. When the campaign the champaign Radio Association got going after the world war, it had a whites only rule. Where does the weather come from . For testing purposes, you should know five points we will be talking about altogether. Center dot colonists settler colonists worried about whether. Many turned to immigration guides. Yet still in the temperate zone. They also claimed illinois was moving north climatewise, for its cultivation increased, the incidence of immigration guides focused on the specificity of categories and comparisons. Settlor geographies ventured into the matter of connected currents. In the mid1850s, a fruit grower in champaign traced winds that coursed over his orchard back to the tradewinds from the coast of africa, which the mountains supposedly channeled north to the gulf of mexico. From there, the african wind flowed up the delta of the mississippi, whence it branches off like a fan off the tributaries of this great watercourse. Having retained african character up to this point, the hot wind began to dissipate in illinois as intermingled with cooler currents. It air produced a continual season of intertropical climates. But in the winter, the current from africa completely withdrew, allowing the freezing current from the north to fully occupy the region. In dunlaps analysis, champaign lay a little closer to the white snows of canada than the africanamerican field hands in adjacent slave states. However useful in attracting more settlers and in conceptualizing their new home, writings on general weather patterns had little daytoday utility. A more pressing meteorological matter was the forecast. Before the advent of professional meteorology, people tried to figure out the weather from observing their surroundings. They came up with all kinds of guidelines from observing clouds and birds. These methods of whether production were only weather prediction were specific to an area and inadequate to how an area would change. Barometers provided a more reliable method. Its courierss adjusted it was not a common tool. Barometers were only useful for short range forecast. Farmers ongoing search for accurate longrange forecast made them a core constituency for meteorological science. So much so that the federal government moved meteorology from the Army Signal Service to the government of agriculture in 1890. On its founding as a civilian agency, the u. S. Weather bureau recognized farmers at its constituency. Professional meteorologists tackled the problem of weather by gathering observations and networking so as to discover patterns as they unfolded. All these efforts enabled meteorologists to depict the weather as a linear matter of fronts and waves, as to previously, a pointed odt. These efforts enabled better forecasting, which thanks to the cables and telegraph wires, could be relayed to wide audiences. Much of the couriers weather reporting positioned champaign as a place where the western winds passed en route to eastern states. This was an artifact of Weather Bureau politics. Reporting to a national constituency, the Weather Bureau squeezed most of its coverage into national maps. Yet the Weather Bureau also took advantage of imperial networks. The career explained the Weather Bureaus ability to track storms in the philippines, japan, siberia, and alaska, enabled better forecasts since storms came to the United States following particular paths an timetablesd. However distant the u. S. Colony in the philippines, air streams connected it to the midwest. The westeast current attracted particular attention in tornado coverage. At first glance, much of the couriers tornado coverage had a local feel. Eyewitness reports of funnel clouds, news stories describe tornadoes cutting a narrow trail of destruction before disappearing into the surrounding thunderstorms. They depicted tornadoes as part of larger systems sweeping from kansas to indiana. The courier echoed the latest meteorological findings and tornadoes as a defining feature of the midwest. Positioned in the center of the nation, the tornado belt resembled a Conveyor Belt that connected the far west to the east. Ye the tornadot. Could be seen as a belt that that separated top from bottom. Reports on the cold front and blizzards that swept down from canada and bermuda highs from the gulf of mexico positioned champagne at the point of encounter between himself. Between north and south. The result was violent clashes. In contrast to temperate places like britain, the skies above illinois seemed to be in the midst of a titanic war. This reportage reignited the issue that caught dunlaps attention earlier, which side was illinois on . Among the articles that spoke to this question where those that spoke about tornadoes. Nearly 20 century, tornadoes appeared to position the midwest more to the south. Weather reports are not always distinguish between the terms hurricane, cycling, and tornado. By using these terms interchangeably, the couriers weather reports associated illinois with places like nicaragua, cuba, and the philippines, that is with tropical places featured in its windstorm coverage. Slowly and unevenly, advances in meteorology edged illinois to the north. More specific classification systems for twisting windstorms removed champagne from the realm of tropical storms. Tornadoes became understood as the result of a convergence of equatorial and polar currents. The concurrent emphasis on the westeast movement of tornado systems took place in champlain and placed champaign and pleased than in the heart of the nation. Like the Indigenous People of assad to displace, settlor colonists searched the skies for wild birds. A book on the attractions of illinois described its bird life as an abundant source of food and feathers. The pond, lakes during the spring and autumn are literally covered with cranes, geese, and ducks of all the tribes and varieties. Yet being subject to constant assault, non migratory gamebirds led to decline. In contrast to yearround residents, migratory birds seemed impervious to overhunting. Spring after fall, the ponds and prairies of illinois enticed birds to land. Yet as the courier applauded good seasons, they did not speak of inexhaustible flocks. They acknowledged hunters had made a dent in the sky. Not every decline in birdlife was lamented, for some of the hunting was extermination missed in intent. This stemmed from the consumption of birds as pets that sucked the honey from bees and gobbled grain. If any bird merited most wanted status, it would be the exogenous sparrow. However first brought these birds yet birds such as the english sparrow where the exception, not the rule. The agriculture departments claims, it is better to give half the food to birds than worms gave a more favorable view of birds. The Scientific Study of birds bearing on agriculture. Until the spread of synthetic pesticides after world war ii reduced the importance of birds for insect pest controls, the findings figured largely in the rural and agricultural press. The courier helped spread findings that most birds were friends of farmers. It depicted birds akin to a police force in pursuit of criminals. By world war i, this rhetoric shifted birds as agents of the allies and birds as our in this great campaign. Concerns about insects helped push illinois farmers into the movement for bird protection. We can see that in this cartoon that shows the farmer as being the person interested in bird as theion and the hunter person who is not supportive of bird protection. Yet rural peoples investment in birds also made them a notable audience of ornithological studies, most of which finding the mystery of migration. Ornithologists relied on grassroots observers to gather data. They embarked on observational expeditions. Following the importance placed the majorlogy, government player was the u. S. Department of agriculture, which had a network of naturalists to study birds from panama to the arctic circle. Their findings appeared in agricultural and hunting obligations and in daily newspapers. Some of these suggested a colonial trajectory to air space the spread of the sparrow serves as the moat notable but some native birds also appeared to be moving with westward. Hunters trying to explain how onetime paradises of birds turned into wasteland concluded that birds somehow changed their course of migration, that they had abandoned their breeding haunts for the comparative solitude of the northwest. Blame also fell on the farmer. I should note it fell on the wires that i was alluding to because it was reports of birds flying into wires and dying as a result. Numerous articles in the agricultural hunting bird protection and daily bress acknowledged that mowing, plowing, brush clearing, and tree chopping harmed breeding birds. Hen there was the tiling and draining. Less water meant fewer ducks. He birds that did not go wrest moved to whats called bird reservations. The reports did not focus on westward movement but on seasonable migrations with a significant northsouth component. These reports came more precise over time. The courier reported on journeys to the west indies, mexico, paragie and the southern parts of brazil. To more northern places as well where some birds stopped by in spring and fall traveling to and from the nords. As some came to winter in illinois leaving again in the spring for northern lands. Such reports of migration made it clear that sam pain was it clear that birds are known to meet. It was a place in the middle of encounter. But for all their attention to connections writings also fostered feelings of division. As was coverage of the weather the midwest position in the middle gave rise to questions of where it truly belonged. The answer tended to be in the north. U. S. Department of agriculture reports, north america north of mexico. This unit of study made it seem like places such as illinois had more in common where places such as newfoundland and oregon than mexico, panama, and jamaica. Such conceptions exaggerated eastwest connections and shrank those that ran north to south. The efforts played out in discussions of true homes. The more they mapped Long Distance travels the more ornithologies wondered where birds belonged. They tried to pin them down to identify their citizenship, as t with were. According to logic birds from north america north of mexico might travel tolt tropics and even farther south just as business agents, military forces and tourists did. But southern birds generally stayed in the south. Perhaps the most significant and long lasting component of boundry drawings were the lines between here and away. It was not until the 1960s that ecolingses began to pay serious attention. Until the 1980s for historians to make substantial progress on change in the americas. Before then bird watchers did not have the conceptual frameworks to understand longterm ecological change or even the ongoing developments of their day. The mining, smelting, stock raising, coffee growing, refining, burning, and mahogany shold in town. If anybody noticed that all that was somehow connected to the birds, they didnt say. But neither did anybody notice that all the ditching and draining in the once wet prairies of the midwest might have reverberations to the north and south millions of wing beats away. Aerial entertainment. On the evening of july 17, 1911, a fiery meteor sped across the heavens throwing off a great light which gradually drew dim. Astronomy students at the university of illinois ran to the observatory from their rooming houses finding the doors locked they smashed the windows to reach the telescope. Other people believed they saw a comet and some reported seeing an air ship. Strange as that might seem it was not the only incident of suspected air ships in the night. Headlines reveal a pattern of nighttime sightings, Mysterious Air ship. Was it an air ship . Say they saw air ship. Thought they saw air ship. To understand why spectators mistook it for a ufo suddenly brought air ships to mind we need to consider the larger context. The recorded history of aerial contraptions begins with kites typically flown by children and for advertising purposes but on occasion in public exhibitions. The winner of a 1916 contest built a ship kite that threw three american flags. Yet for all the celebration of patriotism, the contest included a kite battle identified as a central feature of kite day in china. To ensure the contestants ensured to the kline knees standards of sportsman ship, e clest contest organizers got Chinese Students to act as judges. The turn of the century was the great era of Long Distance balloon races. Given the danger of setting down in water or mountains midwestern cities were popular places for launchings. Thousands showed up and papers covered the International Cast of competitors, routes, and race results often in breathless tones. The coverage these competitions attracted gave midwesterns to see themselves to being in the thick of the ballooning world. As it reported on distances and time, they also captured views from the ground. It ran reports of people being showered with with sand and gravel. Sightings of balloons in telegraph wires. It also reported on overhead sightings, a man looked up with when he heard a voice calling to him from the heavenses. This farmer with was probably familiar with balloons because ascensions with were a common entertainment seen in pick knicks, carnivals, livestock shows, and fairs. To enhance the excitement balloonists would carry a parachutist who would leap at about a thousand feet. The even over, they would head over to other towns. By 1912, bi planes could be spotted and they took off lsewhere in the state as well. A performance b company, known by the seeming rural appalachian barn stormers part of the appeal of the entertainers lay in their appearance. John won widespread fame. Ma tilta was known for her tour of mex exo and Central America where she established a reputation as the most skillful of the world. Another aerial exhibitter who performed went by the name satan day. Day two i should say maybe satan 2 was from the area having grown up in a farm town one county to the north. He had become the youngest licensed pilot in the country after studying flying in new york state. One of his classmates went on to direct the forces in the mexican revolution. Day also came to the attention of mexican combatants. Offering the position of head of his flying corps. The promise that after the subjewgation of the country he would be given charge of the Aviation Department of mexico. Though tempts he turned it down owing to his contract with with an illinois stunt company. This embrace of aerial ascents connected the people on the ground to cosmopolitan worlds of flight. It also distanced them from those who viewed it differently, such as those who fired on those ahead. Or the mexicans who fired on u. S. Aviators along the rio grand. As the spectators applauded the cast of aerial performance artists they had good reason to agree with the prediction that is human flight would bring the world together, bridge continued nents, eliminate front tiers and mix people to evolve a world nation. Every day would be fair day in this wonderful new age and none ofertkite strings would have shards. The possibility that human flight might have other meaning such as fear, danger and death for those on the ground seemed far away. Yet for readers of the courier that possibility could be glimpsed in the news that came through the wires. Some headlines. March 1912, air ship bombs kill arabs. August 1914, german air ship drops bombs on citizens. July 1918, air raids terrorize germans. And if not in headlines then that more grounded perspective could be glimpsed in letters from servicemen who wrote home about the aerial battles and falling bombs they had seen in the skies above france. The last section, air power. Following the u. S. Entry into the great war, the u. S. Military established an air base in the northern part of champagne county by the town of ran tour. That might seem like a strange choice given the human terrain. It was about four miles west from the village known as the german plat being composed almost entirely of ethnic germans. Known as a large German Settlement with schools and churches. The german character of the area raised concerns about security risks, for it had the reputation as the kind of place where as late as 1917 people were buying pictures of the kizer. But it had several things going in its favor. The first with was proximity to the university of illinois which had established professorship in air nautics. Student aviators could receive their training at the university and then join other servicemen for flight instructions. The university was not the only attraction. It also offered cheaper land than the chicago area while still providing the necessary infrastructure. The proposed airfields about a mile square had already been drained as had much of the surrounding countryside. Indeed the countryside around seemed to be an aviators dream. All pilots and especially pilots in training faced the possibility of playing the field. That is, making an emergency landing. The militarys flight manual dwelt on this concern. It instructed pilots to be constantly searching out available landing fields in case of engine failure. Yet those who trained in illinois could exhale. Again, the militarys guide, in the state of illinois, the question of landing fields is almost nonexistent because there are large flat fields and pastures in almost every square mile of farming district. How true. The wisdom of the choice seemed apparent when plane after plane went down and pilot after pilot walked away. And then there was the quality of the air. The rarified air of high altitudes threw engines out of tune. The Mexican Campaign had taught several other lessons beside. High temperature took a toll on radiators. Sandy soil required wider tires. Dry air made wooden propelers go to pieceses. The aviators also complained of fierce whirlwind. We appear to be dealing with with an absolutely abnormal climate. In contrast it seemed normal and thugs an appropriate place to prepare u. S. Pilots for another seemingly normal location, france. Aviation instructors soon arrived from france to offer instruction. The weekly news reported that studying french was quite the rage on the base and upon completion of their training many of the aviators departed for france. Besides directing their own thoughts toward france the aviators also helped focus the attention of the surrounding communities on the war. They did so when they socialized with with the women when they patronized nearby bars and businesses, when they departed to the front with great fanfare, when they wrote of their experiences there. Whether they gained great celebrity as ace one more modest acclaim for bringing down a german airman or two or was shot down by the enemy, the airmen brought the war home. And they brought the war home when they flew. Their flights turned base into the near equivalent of a county fairground in its capacity to attract spectators. The newspapers noted crowds of 8,000 plus people who came to watch the pilots in training. Those used to exhibition flying did not leave disappointed from the final stage of combat training pilots practiced the loops and spirals that typified aviation entertainment. The show spilled well beyond the field where its military pilots militerized air space for miles. They took nearby big wigs up for trial flights. They bombed with liberty loan circumstance lars. They did crowd drawing with all kinds of aerial students. They circumstanceled around before landing for gas. More somberly they flew over military funeral dipping so they could drop flowers into the grave. And they crashed. Reports of the two pilot whose died in the center of the Business District in the village of fisher provided glimpse into the proximity to civilian space. The pilots had been flying very low directly up the street and they died when their plane hit a flag pole. The people of champagne called the aviators bird men, a term used by the airmen themselves. And like birds they were migratory so they went to texas for the winter. Indeed, according to standards, texas may have been the true home for at least some of the aviators because that is where some of the first instructors pledged as military pilots. These men had served with general pershing. During six months of u. S. Military operations in mexico in 1916 with wunch plane in the squadron crashed into the side of a mountain sparking a forest fire. The pilots subsequent complaints about mountain and dessert operations helped lead to the founding of the base in champagne. But if the standard for true homes with was not the first Airborne Mission but the first tour of overseas duty then the history went even further back. For some of the airmen that true home was the philippineses where they had served as part of u. S. Occupation forces amitsed the same winds that were traced to the midwest. Conclusion. Weve covered a lot of ground or rather sky, so the question is how does this fit together and what does it tell us about the history of fly overcountry . If we flip the perspective as flown overstates with we find the people have looked up and out often seeing themselves in the middle of everything. Aerial awareness helped produce an understanding of place that with was in many respects more open than bounded. That is a vision of place that spilled into space. And yet even as they looked to the air the people of champagne tried to draw boundries to limit access, insist on distance and privilege some forms of connection over others. It is important to note that aerial consciousness with was not just lateral to africa, south america, and canada among other places. Much like the with whits who invented jokes rural midwesterners in the 19th century understood that air space also had vertical dimensions, that pan optic views conveyed high stat tiss and power relative to those on the ground, that flyers over could literally look down on flown over people. In this respect, rural menches counted themselves among the empowered for they saw their region as a place to land in and ascend from. The disparage in the urban centers of culture and capital, the supposed bump kins of the heartland did more than looked up. They looked down. Derided as being in the middle of nowhere the heart of the nation coalesed smack in the middle of everywhere between north and south, east and west, and flyover and flownover, too. Thank you. [applause] so how are we doing on time . Ten minutes. So ten minutes for questions. And i have to put my glasses on to be able to see. I see a hand in the front and one in the back. I think youre supposed to go up to the mic. That would be helpful. With once youre at the mic, i dont need my glasses. This sounds very pervasive but do you have any direct testimony from people that would coin side with what youre talking about, about the kinds of what you had just been saying . People who actually saw those things and said those things. So youre saying like do i have letters or diary entries saying this is how aerial consciousness is part of my world view . Seems circumstantial evidence. Right. So thats why i started by talking about the illinois digital newspaper collection is that given my methodology, i started with with local history and followed the threads wherever they led, i didnt have any diary entries or letters saying this is how i see the world. So i had to kind of piece the story together through the source that is i did have. And what the suggested suggested is that there was a lot of attention. I started with kind of the local media and then followed those different threads where i could. There actually was a lot of attention to airborne connection. The most surprising part was the bird part that i hadnt realized how important birds were to rural people. I hadnt realized for protein, for hunting, just how much attention there was in the press to how bird populations, the hunting season, the concern about bird decline. And i certainly had not expected to find anything that suggested that farmers greatly relied on bird for insect pest control. That was an utter surprise. And there was more material that i didnt weve into the talk pertaining to the role of the university of illinois in some of those economic studies. That there was somebody in the History Office who was the leader in dissecting birds. So he in his lab would take them apart and look at whatches in their craws, partially digested things, and he would lay out the insect parts and figure out, how much cherry material was there in the craw and how much insect parts . And he would run the numbers and say they might be nipping some of your fruit. But if you look at the insects, these are the positive benefits of birds. And that kind of knowledge was widely disseminated in all kinds of publicications underscoring the point that even though farmers arent sitting down and writing im really paying a lot of attention to birds because it tells me something about how im positioned in the world, they are certainly paying a lot of attention to birds. And when the populations plummet they become anxious about whats going to happen to my source of insect control. Theyre concerned for Food Security reasons. So when theres more attention to figuring out migeratri roots theyre a National Audience for hat. I have a question about the area, there he seems to be kind of an idea om people in the days, not connecting them to the east or west but really in this smaller world. It just got a lot bigger. My research in south dakota, which is flyover land in a sense work looking at 1900 choice the music of was jazz in the smallest town you can imagine hundreds of jazz fans. The fashion was east coast, Downtown Sioux Falls with was referred to as fifth avenue of the sioux falls. The buyers went to new york. There was no sense of the state as being disconnected from the east coast. So if there was a flyover land we look at today, it with was not flyover land from 1900 to 1940 in terms of selfidentity, it was part of the east in every way you can imagine. Classical music. Vog never was played in the first baptive church of sioux falls and Classical Music was in all the churches. So im confused about how we look at this question of identity and the midwest having this unique identity and being part of the flyover land with when it with was so connected historicically to the east coast. I think thats exactly my argument. If you look at it from the ground, people on the ground are not thinking of their own region as being a place that is strictly flown over and should be dismissed the point is the feeling of connectedness. Guest what im trying to do is to show through this particular lens some of the geographies of connection as well as some of the politics. Thinking about things like the unit of north america north of mexico. That makes no sense. Like birds dont stop at the u. S. Mexico boundry and say, ok, ive reached the wall and im not going to go any farther. That is utter nonsense. Its about the politics, the people who are trying to study birds and think about, how do they want to imagine birds. Im trying to say that in contrast to other forms of connection, if you look at the whole idea of being in the middle of the continent especially prior to things like the development of railroads and better river transportation, steam boths and more of the dredging and so forth. Before the interstate highway system, the travel via land is an arduous thing. Then to travel via water, you have to go down the mississippi for example. Theres certain routes in the center of the country that water would channel people in to. But the point is, looking up and out is a sense of expansiveness. You could be a teenager picking up radio signals from havana. Theres a sense that there is nothing in between you and the people and sense of valuing. Theyre not having sophisticated conversations but its a sense of we are connectd with something that was picked up again time and time again in the press and suggests wider communities of enthusiasm for being in the middle of everything. So i think were very much on the same page with trying to think of ways that people who have been written off as local and provencial isolated and so forth have in fact been profoundly connected to other parts of the world. And in their kind of madgings of themselves, i think if we look up and look at air space there is something specific about that that is about the possibility of unmediated Long Distance connections. Im getting a signal from scott that were out of time. So thank you very much. [applause] this weekend on the presidency c. I. A. Chief hist torn talks about the evolving nature of the relationship between president s and their c. I. A. Directors and how that relationship is influenced by the president s needs and interests. At other times president s have said they wanted a little more energetic type of leadership, not one that is going to take the agency off on big Foreign Policy crew sadse but rather ones to manage it during times that are a little bit in transition. So when you think about jim woolsey, for example, who was bill clintons first director, clinton is a president who comes in and doesnt really know what he wants to do with c. I. A. Because hes fundamentally a domestic policy president. He doesnt have a Foreign Policy agenda so he picks a known quantity from washington to just kind of come in and say keep the agency running and ill ring the phone when im interested in having something done. Needless to say, woolsy did not have much of a relationship with with president clinton. He rarely saw him, as best i know they met only a couple times in formal meetings. Youve heard the story about the airplane crashing on the white house lawn and people joked that was jim woolsey trying to get an appointment to see the president. Hell be the first one to tell you that he was pretty much read out of Foreign Policy. The Clinton White House National security environment with was run by the National Security advisers, secretary of state, secretary of defense were prominent figures and such. Watch the entire talk sunday on the presidency at 8 00 p. M. Youre watching american istory tv. Next, on the civil war, impact ns discuss the of women suveragets and abolitionists during the civil war. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a group of historians who have advised us in the opening of our new