Life in front of the bulldozer

I have thought of professional genealogists as an island surrounded by amateurs, but it had not occurred to me that the same might be said of historic preservationists until I read this article by
Kate Wagner: "The Archivists of Extinction," 19 October 2018, in The Baffler:

"What if I told you one of the largest ever undertakings in American historic preservation was happening not through the graces of any large institution, but through the autonomous participation of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of individuals across the country, who are collectively stitching together their own narrative of architectural history? The 'Kmart' group on the photo-sharing website Flickr has amassed a staggering twenty-five thousand photos of its subject, a struggling American discount store. . . .

"This is the ice-cold reality of the retail death spiral. It’s why people feel the need to collect motel postcards, share old photos of their hometowns, and document the finale of Kmart. The end time is always lurking; the only thing you can do is take pictures and post stories before it happens. . . ."

Much more here.

Her blog is McMansion Hell.

Letting it go

 What do you throw away? What do you keep? What do you restore? What do you allow to deteriorate?

These questions in historic preservation -- the English call it "heritage," which doesn't presuppose as much -- are addressed provocatively, philosophically, and concretely by cultural geographer Caitlin DeSilvey in her new book Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving. She mostly discusses buildings, but in chapter two she reflects on her graduate work on a recently abandoned Montana homestead that was "not yet old enough to be interesting to (most) archaeologists and too marginal and dilapidated to be a straightforward candidate for historic preservation." When does an old book cross the line from a memory receptacle to mouse food?

Anyone who has ever dealt with the household goods and papers of the recently deceased will find rich food for thought  -- not always comfortable thought -- here.

"Dust to dust" is not the preservationist's motto, nor is it the genealogist's. But it is a fact. Not everything can be preserved. (And if it could we would soon drown in it.) Saving, preserving, restoring, remembering, all run against the entropic tide of nature. If we don't focus those efforts we're just hoarding.