Barnstorming the Prairies
How Aerial Vision Shaped the Midwest
Published on 29. December 2015
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-0-8166-7750-4 (ISBN)
Description
To Midwesterners tucked into small towns or farms early in the twentieth century, the landscape of the American heartland reached the horizon-and then imagination had to provide what lay beyond. But when aviation took off and scenes of the Midwest were no longer earthbound, the Midwestern landscape was transformed and with it, Jason Weems suggests in this book, the very idea of the Midwest itself.
Barnstorming the Prairies offers a panoramic vista of the transformative nature and power of the aerial vision that remade the Midwest in the wake of the airplane. This new perspective from above enabled Americans to conceptualize the region as something other than isolated and unchanging, and to see it instead as a dynamic space where people worked to harmonize the core traditions of America's agrarian character with the more abstract forms of twentieth-century modernity. In the maps and aerial survey photography of the Midwest, as well as the painting, cinema, animation, and suburban landscapes that arose through flight, Weems also finds a different and provocative view of modernity in the making. In representations of the Midwest, from Grant Wood's iconic images to the Prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright to the design of greenbelt suburbs, Weems reveals aerial vision's fundamental contribution to regional identity-to Midwesternness as we understand it.
Reading comparatively across these images, Weems explores how the cognitive and perceptual practices of aerial vision helped to resymbolize the Midwestern landscape amid the technological change and social uncertainty of the early twentieth century.
Barnstorming the Prairies offers a panoramic vista of the transformative nature and power of the aerial vision that remade the Midwest in the wake of the airplane. This new perspective from above enabled Americans to conceptualize the region as something other than isolated and unchanging, and to see it instead as a dynamic space where people worked to harmonize the core traditions of America's agrarian character with the more abstract forms of twentieth-century modernity. In the maps and aerial survey photography of the Midwest, as well as the painting, cinema, animation, and suburban landscapes that arose through flight, Weems also finds a different and provocative view of modernity in the making. In representations of the Midwest, from Grant Wood's iconic images to the Prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright to the design of greenbelt suburbs, Weems reveals aerial vision's fundamental contribution to regional identity-to Midwesternness as we understand it.
Reading comparatively across these images, Weems explores how the cognitive and perceptual practices of aerial vision helped to resymbolize the Midwestern landscape amid the technological change and social uncertainty of the early twentieth century.
Reviews / Votes
"Barnstorming the Prairies deepens our understanding of the Midwest and attitudes toward it in the twentieth century. It is original, authoritative, and an engaging read."-Joni Kinsey, University of Iowa"Amazing, refreshing, and thought-provoking."-Leonardo Reviews
"An important contribution to the literature on ethnographic and visual history."-CHOICE
"Enthusiasts of visual culture, history, and rural life should welcome this book, which performs significant cultural work itself in reorienting scholarly views of the Midwest, and is a strong contribution to the current recentering of the Midwest in American cultural studies."-The Annals of Iowa
"The in-depth text and the extensive visuals-aerial photos and maps, as well as painting, cinema, and architecture-together reveal aerial vision's fundamental contribution to the regional identity of the Midwest."-Minnesota History
"Illustrated with 19th-century bird's-eye views, airplane route maps, and Grant Wood paintings, Barnstorming the Prairies shows how the modern invention of flight couldn't have been better timed to shape modern painting, silent-era filmmaking, and even the planning of New Deal suburbs."-Architecture Minnesota
"His specialty in art history, along with a deep understanding of geography, architecture, and planning, provides a well-rounded and thoughtful treatment of the topic that is truly multidisciplinary and relevant to any student or resident of the Great Plains."-Great Plains Quarterly
"Productively combining cultural history, visual theory, science studies, art history and geography, the book will interest a diverse readership."-Visual Studies
"Readers will learn about an important shift in American culture from a regional perspective."-The Michigan Historical Review
"A model for analyzing aeriality across various media and in multiple guises, making it a comprehensive read that would prove useful in various courses, from art history to architectural and urban history."-Panorama
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
132
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 203 mm
Thickness: 51 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-8166-7750-4 (9780816677504)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jason Weems is associate professor of art history at the University of California, Riverside.
Content
Contents
Introduction: Aeriality and Midwesternness
1. Pioneering Visions: The Midwestern Grid, the Atlas, and an Aerial Imagination
2. Managerial Mosaics: New Deal Aerial Photography and the Marshaling of Rural America
3. Adaptive Aeriality: Grant Wood, the Regional Landscape, and Modernity
4. Jeffersonian Urbanism: Frank Lloyd Wright, Aerial Pattern, and the Broadacre City
Conclusion: Over the Rainbow
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction: Aeriality and Midwesternness
1. Pioneering Visions: The Midwestern Grid, the Atlas, and an Aerial Imagination
2. Managerial Mosaics: New Deal Aerial Photography and the Marshaling of Rural America
3. Adaptive Aeriality: Grant Wood, the Regional Landscape, and Modernity
4. Jeffersonian Urbanism: Frank Lloyd Wright, Aerial Pattern, and the Broadacre City
Conclusion: Over the Rainbow
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index