i n . p r i n t: American Places

American Places: Encounters with History. Edited by William E. Leuchtenburg. Oxford University Press, 398 pages, $30.

by Janet Wagner

o places resonate with traces of the events that they’ve hosted? Were the ancient Romans on to something with their belief in genius loci, the presiding spirit of a place? American Places: Encounters with History evokes such questions. Comprising essays by 28 prominent historians, this Festschrift celebrates the career of former Oxford University Press editor Sheldon Meyer with personal interpretations of the significance of place.

William Leuchtenburg, professor of history, found those asked to contribute were eager to pay homage to their friend and editor, as well as intrigued by the project’s theme. But for some, getting personal wasn’t easy. (One historian found the theme so far beyond his ken that he declined to contribute.) Leuchtenburg returned most of the first drafts, including Pulitzer Prize-winning historian C. Vann Woodward’s submission, with the instruction to be more personal. "Though it was hard at first," he says, "most found this project was a kind of holiday. Here, instead of being always the detached observer, they could write the kind of personal piece they had been admonished since graduate school to avoid."

Some authors’ topics were highly imaginative. Edward L. Ayers defined place as cyberspace—finding it a "clear projection of core American hopes and anxieties." Two authors, James C. Cobb and David Brion Davis, defined American as places in Europe ("World War II Normandy" and "The Americanized Mannheim of 1945-1946"). Joel Williamson, a history professor at Carolina, chose Graceland before, during, and after Elvis. "The only topic that I turned down was Yankee Stadium," Leuchtenburg says. "We already had the Polo Grounds and Fenway Park, and, despite my great love of baseball, I felt we’d bagged our limit."

In an essay that artfully deciphers cultural contrasts between Charleston and New Orleans, William W. Freehling reveals that he came to "fully appreciate differences within the Deep South" by visiting those cities. In Charleston, where mansions are close to but protected from the street, and commerce is sequestered, Freehling sees "an anticity for antientrepreneurs routed from the farm" and tethered to the past. New Orleans, where life overflows from houses into streets, and residential and commercial spaces are mingled, calls to mind prosperous, forward-thinking planters who visited the city for "decadent pleasure and resourceful business."

euchtenburg’s topic was something of a surprise, even to himself. "I thought since I’d written numbers of books on the presidency that I’d write about Mt. Rushmore." But as the first drafts began pouring in, he realized the few days he’d spent in South Dakota weren’t conducive to a personal approach. He chose instead Queens, New York, where he’d spent the first 21 years of his life. His wife took one of the photographs that illustrate his essay.

Leuchtenburg believes interest in place, which waned over recent generations, is reviving, and this book is part of that trend. In fact, he is finishing a book that looks at three twentieth-century presidents (Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman, and Franklin Roosevelt) and how each president’s sense of place shaped the course of his presidency and the history of the South.

American Places exceeded Leuchtenburg’s expectations. "I was so pleased by the kind of passion that the authors brought to their work," he says. His only real regret is that he couldn’t include all Meyer’s American-studies authors in the project. "At the reception launching the book, we joked about doing ‘Son of American Places,’" Leuchtenburg recalls. "I doubt that’s a serious proposition, but for all of us involved, it would be an attractive one."

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