That's Where I Live!

When I first saw I had the opportunity to flip through old tour guides for each of the states, I went right for the Massachusetts book. No, not because I wanted to find my own hometown there—I’ve long ago given up the hope that the bustling metropolis that is North Reading, MA might get the tourist attention it deserves. But Massachusetts is my home, and naturally I’m intrigued by what non-New Englanders (New Englishmen?) think is noteworthy in the state. I expected a few paragraphs on Paul Revere’s house, maybe the USS Constitution and some historical collections of muskets and tri-cornered hats. Maybe there would be a footnote about the Salem Witch Trials for the dedicated history adventurers of the 1930s. Easy.
 
Then I saw just how big the guide was. 796 pages. Would that even fit in a glove compartment? As I flipped through, I was shocked at how detailed its descriptions of landmarks were, how thorough its histories of each town. Much of what was in the guidebook sounded familiar, and some of it was nostalgic. The chapter on Lowell’s sites and history reminded me of the numerous summer camp days I spent at the Lowell Mills and the Salem walking tour felt like an incredibly detailed and familiar description of my memories of the town. Incredibly, it felt like I was rediscovering my own state in a new way. The guide was taking hundreds, even thousands of tiny fragments of experiences and weaving them together in a colossal conceptual patchwork. For the first time, I saw my experiences as Massachusetts experiences. Without resorting to the tactics of a simplistic, objectifying tourism advertisement, the guide had condensed all of Massachusetts—its people, his history, its places—into a cohesive and singular text.
 
Then it hit me: this was one book on one state in a series that went state-by-state and region-by-region. Looking through the South Dakota guidebook was like reading about a foreign country. But I realized that there were South Dakotans who would be reading that book with the same personal fascination I had when reading about my own state. People today could be looking at photos of The Burr Oaks in Washington, Mississippi with the same personal fascination I felt when reading about the Somerville Powder House, which would strike them as exotic and distant—and perhaps worth exploring. This was, I think, the real power of the WPA in their time. As the country sank deep into Depression, questioning its own identity and ability to survive, these guides reminded readers that America remained a worthwhile place. Even in the worst of times, Americans still had something to be proud of as well as a near-infinite stretch of land, people, and traditions that one person could only begin to explore.