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2023 November Blog
“When you truly get to know people right where they are, you find they are more like you than you thought.” Lory Janelle Dance, Activist
I was prompted to writing this blog by reading a review about “American Gothic,” possibly the most iconic piece of American Art. Here’s a short excerpt from it:
Few things evoke the American heartland as indelibly as Grant Wood’s painting “American Gothic,” from 1930, which appears to show a stolid and plain-living couple standing in front of their farmhouse in Eldon, Iowa. Yet, as Daniel Immerwahr explores in a fascinating essay in this week’s issue, the image’s projection of rural authenticity belies its stage-managed creation. “The Eldon house that Wood depicted, built in 1881, wasn’t the ancestral home of sturdy agrarians,” Immerwahr writes. “The first owner lost it because of overdue taxes, the next tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a candy-and-novelty store, and the property changed hands many more times before Wood’s 1930 visit.” The “couple” in the painting were modelled by Wood’s sister and his dentist. Their clothes came new, courtesy of Sears, Roebuck & Co., in Chicago. And the famous window in the background came from Sears, too.
The myths and realities of “American Gothic,” which a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art called a “Rorschach test for the character of the nation,” mirror the fictions and truths about country life in America more generally. And, Immerwahr writes, as the United States has divided itself politically between urban and rural demographics—with the contested suburbs in between—the work of untangling these stories is more urgent than ever.
It was that last sentence that struck me…untangling the stories that portray two Americas, one rural, one urban. That was enough to hook me. The author continued, “The Eldon house that Wood depicted, built in 1881, wasn’t the ancestral home of sturdy agrarians,” Immerwahr writes. “The first owner lost it because of overdue taxes, the next tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a candy-and-novelty store, and the property changed hands many more times before Wood’s 1930 visit. The ‘couple’ in the painting were modelled by Wood’s sister and his dentist. Their clothes came new, courtesy of Sears, Roebuck & Co., in Chicago. And the famous window in the background came from Sears, too.”
Here is the idea that sparked my interest: “The myths and realities of ‘American Gothic’, which a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art called a ‘Rorschach test for the character of the nation,’ mirror the fictions and truths about country life in America more generally. And, Immerwahr writes, as the United States has divided itself politically between urban and rural demographics—with the contested suburbs in between—the work of untangling these stories is more urgent than ever.”
How do we untangle the stereotypes that have created an antagonism between urban and rural, real enough in some particulars, but blown way out of proportion in general. Are we really that different? For instance, how many of the “urban” are young people moving out of the farms and villages, possibly for jobs or opportunities or pleasures? And how many of the farmers/villagers are actually large-scale corporate farmers, the result of the industrialization of agriculture? Or, again, take a majority of our legislators making pronouncements on issues of international affairs (when they can’t even manage the business of the legislature fairly)—is that because they are urban or rural?
Although I live in one of the larger Nebraska towns outside the Omaha-Lincoln area, I’ve had occasion to know the heads of some of our larger commercial interests and my fair share of farmers and ranchers. I don’t see the “binary” in those I know. Yes, if I were a farmer, I’d probably like to see my property taxes go down, and if I were from Omaha, I wouldn’t want them to come down by increasing my income tax. And in either case, I wouldn’t count on a partisan legislature to seek a real solution, not one that pits us against one another.
I know there are different interests at stake. It’s the fact that low prices for corn may mean a better market for beef and that fact divides the interests of ranchers from those of farmers. From the number of coalitions representing both farmers and ranchers, that one divide does not divide the over everything. Similarly, I doubt urbanites in general hold different values from citizens in rural areas.
I’m getting very suspicious of our supposed divisions, divisions that now seem to hover over almost every aspect of life these days. They merit the spirit of a good detective, asking who benefits from the division. In the south, who benefits from pitting struggling white share-croppers against struggling black share-croppers? Someone, you can bet, someone who doesn’t want the two to find any common ground.
It is easy in Nebraska to suggest that those enamored with the letter R beside a candidate’s name are not limited to rural or urban populations. It isn’t even hard to show that such a bewitching letter has led both urban and rural voters to end up voting against their own interests. The rural “R” folks voted R and then saw that vote close down a lot of their local health facilities; urban “R” folks voted R and then saw that vote limit the workers available for their plants. I wonder who benefited from either of those outcomes?
Let me offer two stories, one rural, one urban, and ask if you think there is a real divide between rural and urban values…or from someone or some group wanting to exploit what real differences there may be on some issues. (Or you could dig up old episodes of “Green Acres” to see if, in its satire of stereotypes, the differences amount to very much,)
Story one—urban: a metropolitan church decided its usual celebration of Maundy Thursday—a commemoration of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet—was only a ritual unless it led, literally or figuratively, to washing the feet around them. So Maundy Thursday became the occasion for a major “foot clinic” for those who do not regularly get foot care. Experts are on hand, as are supplies of foot-wear and foot-care products, to “wash” the feet of their urban neighbors, among them the homeless.
Story two—rural: a small sandhills town’s restaurant was the gathering place for lots of people not regularly getting nourishing meals—for instance, people (regardless of their former marital history) now living alone and just not able to get out much or willing to cook much for a table of one. And then, the current problems for small rural villages being what they are, the restaurant faces closing—and its owner are seeking how their patrons could still get a nourishing meal on a regular basis. “I was hungry and you gave me to eat.”
Sorry, but I can’t see how those two stories emerge from very different senses of value. The particulars of what is possible or is needed may indeed different, but the kind of caring is the same one place or the other.
Maybe some understanding of real, lived, values is the place to begin untangling the divides among us—divides from someone, not us!, profits. And some of those profiting most, are those funding our politics!
And maybe discovering and sharing the stories of our discoveries and our sharing is the best way we can give thanks, even in these times fraught with troubles fabricated from our fears and governed not by the grace we receive but by the grievances we can provoke.
When we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, how about instead of or along with a table grace, we tell a story or two of people caring for what, deep down, we all care for—for hearts more grateful and the finding of more common ground.
Happy Thanksgiving – no matter whether you are urban or rural, in between or uncertain!
Kearney Nebraska
November 2023
Next blog: the annual Christmastide Reflections, followed shortly thereafter by the New Years In Memoriam.
capeek 