Research Week: Day 4...Local History and Hometowns

Today, we took a walking tour of Cooperstown and discussed the town's history.  As a little bit of background, Cooperstown was established by William Cooper in 1786.  William Cooper was the father of James Fenimore Cooper, the famous American author of the Letherstocking Tales (The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans).  


The Pioneers is based off of real-life experiences of James Fenimore Cooper, and many of the characters represented in the book are characterizations of real people, like Judge Templeton who is a representation of William Cooper.  Since The Pioneers tells a story that is interwoven in Cooperstown's past, myths about the history of the town have arise from the events in the books, and some people in the town view the James's book more as history than as fiction.

Our class took this mythological history under discussion and began to wonder about how biased people are about their own town's history, and who is the best person to write a local history, a native or an outsider?

The problem is that many people including myself, do not want to hear maligning things about our hometown's past, whether or not these events concern us at all.  Thus, when doing research some locals are apt to not study some of the more gruesome details of a town's history and instead focus on things to be proud of.  So one would think that in this case it might be better for an objective outside historian to write a local history, however there are problems with that.  Locals are usually the ones who are more interested in their town's history and more likely to delve as deeply as possible, locals are also the ones who are likely to start with a wide base knowledge about the town, and set the elderly more at ease when asking questions.  There is not real right or wrong answer, I am sure that the truth is somewhere in the middle, this problem does lead to another interesting question though.

Why do we not want to hear bad things about our town's past?

Most people were not even alive when many events took place, many people probably don't even have family who lived in the town when a terrible event took place.  Still, despite being a first generationer in a town we don't want to hear about bad things that happened in our town, even if they happened a hundred years ago.  I know that being born in Southington, CT, I don't want to hear outside historians coming in a talking about slavery that took place in my hometown, but at the same time as a historian I know these are important things to learn about.

It would seem to me that the issue is that out hometown is part of who we are and a piece of our history, whether or not we were involved in the events.  Some how we feel a deep connection to the place of our birth so an affront to it can feel like a personal attack.  We are also associated with our hometown, so in a way feel associated to the past deeds that happened there.  When writing histories about unpleasant events in our home town, we many worry about what our neighbors are going to think because they will be interested, and how that will reflect on our family.  It seems like a very complicated issue to me, with so many angles.