Teddy Roosevelt's rocks: Speak softly and carry a big history

The recent reviews of Ken Burns’ National Parks film in The Public Historian got me thinking about the NPS site in my hometown, Oyster Bay, Long Island. Sagamore Hill was the home of Theodore Roosevelt for most of his adult life, and it was where he died in 1919. Many years later, it was also the place where I began my career in public history, as a seasonal park ranger. I often return to this site, both physically and metaphorically, when pondering issues in our field.

One of the things that I love about Sagamore Hill is the way it allows visitors to explore both history and nature—appropriate for a site that honors a person who was both president of the American Historical Association and an ardent conservationist. The focal point of the site is Roosevelt’s house, which is filled with trophies from his many hunting expeditions, a dramatic, if not universally appealing display of Roosevelt’s visceral connection to the natural environment. The farm fields, orchard, woodlands, salt marsh, and beach near the house are even more important evidence of the influence of nature on Roosevelt. (Currently, NPS is implementing a cultural landscape rehabilitation project at the site that includes restoration of the historic farm fields and orchard.) Fittingly, other Roosevelt-related sites--Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands of North Dakota, and Theodore Roosevelt Island in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C--share this trait of intertwining historical and natural landscapes.

So what does this have to do with rocks? In addition to Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay is filled with memorials to Theodore Roosevelt and the Roosevelt family. (In fact, I’m writing this post in the town’s public library, which contains a memorial to the president’s son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who died during World War II.) As a kid, I went to Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School, visited the Theodore Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary, and played on the playground at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park.

In that park is a curious little memorial that, although not under the purview of NPS, sums up why I think Roosevelt is the perfect link between historical and environmental narratives. It is literally Roosevelt’s story written in rocks. The rocks were collected in the early 1920s, shortly after Roosevelt’s death, from various places where significant events in his life occurred. For example, there is a granite block from Moosehead Lake, Maine where Roosevelt went as a young man to regain his health and a boulder from San Juan Hill, Cuba where his “Rough Riders” made their famous charge for American imperialism. There is also a boulder from the Adirondacks where he learned that McKinley had been shot, another from the Culebra Cut of the Panama Canal, and a piece of anthracite coal from Pennsylvania which was a gift from Gifford Pinchot (see image at top).

Although historians don’t often use rocks as artifacts to interpret history--we generally think, perhaps rightly, that furnishings, clothing, tools, and other pieces of material culture offer more compelling interpretive opportunities--these rocks are strangely captivating to me. I think it’s because I see in them a way to think about history more expansively--almost as a geologist might. They might even lead us toward an approach that some scholars have labeled “Big History.” Proponents of this type of history like to examine things on a grand scale--the really longue durée. (Check out this TED talk from David Christian where he traces the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the Internet in 18 minutes.)

As used in the memorial, the rocks are little more than relics, similar to the handfuls of dirt that people took from the old Yankee Stadium before it was demolished. Yet they represent epochs of earth’s geological history and multiple human histories as well. Thinking of them in this way requires some imagination and a willingness to think beyond their narrow association with Roosevelt and ponder much longer time spans and processes. Imagine using the San Juan Hill boulder to probe the arrival and habitation of Native peoples on the Caribbean islands, Spanish conquest, and American intervention in support of Cuban anti-colonial fighters. The natural history of the island is an essential part of any of these human histories. Similarly, picture using the piece of anthracite coal to explore the exploitation of natural resources, industrial development, the politics of energy, and labor struggles. Indeed, each one of “Teddy’s rocks” is exploding with interpretive possibilities. If given the opportunity, a good park ranger could make these connections come alive for visitors.

As we struggle on a global scale to understand the long cycles of climate change and the consequences of human use and misuse of resources, this kind of interpretive shift may be not only intriguing but essential. For me, it is Roosevelt’s history--as both conservationist and historian--that encourages thinking in this way. Speaking in Jamestown, Virginia in 1907--another appropriate location for thinking about the intersections of human and environmental histories--Roosevelt said, “The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.”[1] For Roosevelt, the “environment” or “nature” did not exist separately from American society. He understood that human history and natural history are inextricably linked.

~ Will Walker

[1] H. Paul Jeffers, The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1998), 30. See also, Douglas Brinkley, Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 691-692.

* Many thanks to editor Cathy Stanton for some excellent wordsmithing on this piece.

Witnessing "history"?

3...2...1... We have lift off! Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off for her final voyage on July 8, marking the end of NASA’s 30-year old shuttle program, and I was there. Honestly, it is bigger on TV. But television doesn’t adequately capture the physical sensation of participation.

The feeling of excitement was palpable, beginning when we checked into the hotel. There was the child clutching his planet-covered pillow, the students wearing their Georgia Tech Aerospace Engineering tee shirts, the news crew with their giant cameras, and us (my parents, sister, brother-in-law, five-year-old nephew, and a good friend from college). Only a few hours later, the wake up call came and bleary eyed we rendezvoused in the elevator just before 3:00 a.m. to head to the Kennedy Space Center. There was traffic. There were lines for security. There were lines for admission. Then we were there.

Clutching our tickets for the 4:45 a.m. breakfast with an astronaut, it began to sink in. We were taking part in a historic event...or at least that’s how the news kept billing it. As someone who was there, I’m not sure that would be the adjective I’d use.

Let’s back up for some perspective. I am part of the shuttle generation. The first shuttle launched in 1981 when I was five--right when permanent memories start forming (that's me, age seven, in the middle of the photo at the left, at NASA in Houston). I clearly remember the Challenger explosion, or more accurately, Mr. Baker (the elementary school principal) running through the halls yelling for the teachers to turn off the televisions. We were all ready to watch the first teacher in space, but suddenly it was silent and we were all sent home to have our parents explain what we had just witnessed.

I briefly toyed with the idea of rocket science when considering colleges, but space had become a bit pedestrian. It was no longer news to watch a shuttle launch. With the exception of identifying Orion in the night sky, I didn’t think much about space, but I also didn’t realize how much the shuttle program was still a part of me. I was in graduate school when Columbia was lost during reentry. Pairing Challenger and Columbia seemed like a no-brainer for a history of science and technology lesson. Most of the students couldn’t care less. They were not children of the shuttle program.

When President Bush canceled the shuttle program and President Obama cut NASA’s budget, I didn’t think too much about the implications of space exploration. But when NASA announced the end of the shuttle launches, I knew it was my last chance to participate in shuttle festivities, and I knew I wanted to be there.

And so I found myself waiting for hours, surrounded by thousands of other space enthusiasts, anticipating the end of an era. It feels strange, as a historian, to be marking an historic event in the present. My fellow shuttle watchers didn’t share the sentiment. They had nothing but hope and excitement and a feeling of privilege (and maybe a bit of luck) to take part in the event.

Most of the day had the atmosphere of an oddly subdued party. Even the most amateur meteorologist could look at the clouds in the sky and see there was a good chance the launch would be canceled, so we all just milled about, looking at exhibits at the visitor complex, silently hoping that everything would be all right, and following the live feed from NASA.

Former astronauts were on the stage sharing their experiences as the crew went through their final checklist. As it got closer to launch time, Ground Control began giving thanks to all of the men and women who had made the 30 years of the shuttle program possible. Misty-eyed patriots cheered at each remembrance. The crowd gave a collective shout of joy at T minus five minutes, T minus three minutes, T minus one minute. Then, at T minus 31 seconds, someone ordered a hold. I don’t think anyone in the crowd took a breath. We just waited. It had to go up. It just had to. Countdown resumed, and the crowd started chanting. Five...four...three...two...one...and then...nothing.

We were all at the visitors center complex, which is eight miles from the launch pad with a line of trees blocking the horizon. We knew it would take a few seconds before we would see the shuttle, but I don’t think anyone thought those seconds would be so interminable. Then someone shouted, and the crowd surged forward, and you could see the trail of fire through the sky. The shuttle popped into the clouds, reemerged moments later, and was then lost to the clouds for good. A successful launch.

Hours of waiting for seconds of viewing. Is this what it looks like to see history as it unfolds? I’m a bit of a skeptic. Despite the fact that I now own the official launch program, have bought a lanyard for my grand finale launch ticket (shown at left), and mailed some commemorative covers to my Postal Museum friends, I’m left unconvinced by the historic nature of the event.

Don’t get me wrong. It was fabulous, and a memory I will hold dearly. But is it history? Regardless of what the souvenir merchandise available in the gift shop claims, I don’t think we will know for several decades. I believe that determining the historic-ness of this final shuttle launch depends on the future. Is this the moment America hands over manned space flight to Russia? Is this the beginning of an even stronger international collaboration with the space station? Is this the necessary cut needed to jump forward to deeper space exploration and potential travel to Mars? Or does this launch mark a turning point where American society looks internally towards its own planet rather than dreaming of space?

What are the responsibilities of public historians or historians of science and technology or the media or simply space enthusiasts to mark an event and call it history? What material culture should we save, what memories should we document, what stories should we perpetuate?

~ Allison Marsh