Paul Bunyan monument. Bemidji, Minnesota, Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer
Paul Bunyan, dinosaurs made of abandoned car parts, enormous balls of twine, an entire palace made of corn, the stuffed carcass of the world’s largest bull; these are the sign-posts and ephemera of America’s highways and byways. Comically bad and appropriately out-of-scale, roadside attractions express our shared desire for a larger than life purpose, a collective identity, a national mythology, an American story. The American landscape is littered with objects both strange and banal, yet even the most ordinary object can hold a hidden story. What is it? What was its purpose? Who built it? What happened to it? With these questions in mind we will approach an investigation of some extraordinary objects that compose our every-day landscape. These “roadside attractions,” while less audacious than their more celebrated kitsch counterparts, none-the-less hold stories — interesting and even valuable stories.
For this assignment you will each be assigned one of the following objects at random:
– a grain elevator
– a levee
– a trolley line
– a mill (saw, grist, flour, etc.)
Your job is to research and describe your object through the investigation of a local example. Much like the first assignment, I am not asking for a book report about your object, rather I want you to investigate a local example in order to tell its story.
With that in mind, you’ll need to identify a local example and find out as much as you can about it. There is no set definition of “local”, however, you must be able to visit your example. This means you should consider the forms of transportation at your disposal before settling on a particular site to research. Internet sources are a good place to start looking but you should quickly move into more specialized resources. For this assignment good places to look are detailed maps and local newspapers. Excellent sources of maps and newspapers for the Columbus area are:
– The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps: (OSU login required)
– Baist’s Real Estate Atlas Survey of Columbus and Vicinity
– The Columbus Dispatch 1877 –
– The Columbus Citizen 1899 – 1959
– Chronicling America (Historic Newspapers) (OSU login required)
Note: maps, images and newspaper articles can be searched for using the OSU Library System’s catalogue and research databases, but many resources for this project are available at the Columbus Metropolitan Library, located on Grant Street in Downtown Columbus – it is okay to go downtown.
Note also: You will almost certainly have to leave campus in order to complete this project in a satisfactory manner. Plan accordingly.
Once you’ve identified your local example and researched it, write a 2000 – 2500 word essay telling the story you’ve discovered. Your essay should address the following points:
– In general, what is your attraction and what does it do/how does it work?
– In general, why did people build your attraction?
– When was your specific attraction built and who built it?
– Why was your specific attraction located where it was? What did it relate to?
– How long did your specific attraction last/function? Is it still functioning?
– If your specific attraction became obsolete, why did it become obsolete?
– What condition is your attraction in today? Is there evidence of it?
– In general, what impact did your attraction and attractions like it have on the American landscape?
Audience:
Write your essay using a journalistic tone, i.e. as if you were writing for a magazine or newspaper. This means that you should assume that your audience does not have any prior-knowledge of your object, but that they are reasonably well educated, literate people. For this audience, your style should be engaging, drawing your readers into the information you’ve found and letting them know why that story is interesting or why it matters. Don’t bore your audience, they may stop reading. Most importantly, please keep in mind that you are not writing to the instructors. Imagine that your audience doesn’t know that you’re a college student writing this essay for an assignment. Your audience is just interested in an informative, interesting, and possibly even entertaining read. You may include as many maps and images as you need in order to tell your story, and you may crop/enlarge/highlight maps and images as necessary. You should provide captions that describe the images you choose to include in your essay. Be sure to properly cite all maps and images as well as all other quotes and ideas.
Submission Format:
Digital Submission: Via Carmen Dropbox
File type: .doc or .docx
Font: 12 point font, double spaced
Citation Style: Chicago Manual of Style–Notes and Bibliography System
Dos and Dont’s
– Do, visit the map library and speak to a librarian.
– Do, visit the Ohio Historical Archive and speak to an archivist.
– Do, visit the Columbus Metropolitan Library and speak to a librarian
– Do, spell and grammar check your paper.
– Do, have a person you trust proofread your paper for content as well as mistakes.
– Do, visit your attraction.
– Do, photograph your attraction and include your photographs in your paper.
– Do, have fun with this assignment. Imagine you’re a Detective Freamon from The Wire. Track things down.
– Do, tell us as specific a story as possible.
– Don’t tell us a vague story about all grain elevators, levees, trolley lines, or mills. That story will be easy to write, but insufferably boring.
– Don’t plagiarize.
– Don’t try to sell us your attraction. We’re not interested in buying it or building a new one, we just want an interesting story. You’re not writing ad copy.
– Don’t start your paper the night before it’s due!!!! – It will be boring and it will be poorly researched. More importantly, you won’t have any fun writing it and we won’t have any fun reading it.