October 2nd Essay

Glassberg writes at the beginning of the article that historians look at social and political ideals and then find a place where it occurred and go from there.  The public looks at a place and wonders what did happen here.  From this our sense of place is affected by community and what we hear from people.  It was noted in the article that some might  think that a place is not significant unless it is remembered in history, or has a monument built on it.

Psychologists, however, say that a stimulus can bring up a memory of our childhood.  Meaning that going back to a place we know or seeing something similar to it will bring up a memory from our past.  We connect to things throughout our lives.  We connect to places that we socialize at, or where we take vacations with family.  These places help to personally identify us.  Our connections to places is really strong, if something is done to change that place to much there might be more harm done to the people with memories there.  Those people might go into a deep depression because their home might be turned into a shopping mall or something not resembling their memories.

We might not have a memory of a place because nothing good happened there, or we just do not want to connect with that place; or it could be that we have no reason to have a connection there.  The Native Americans were displaced by the Europeans, they lost the land they most connected with.  When they were pushed west of the Mississippi they had no connection what so ever to that land because they did not stay there for long periods of time if they ever went there to begin with. 

I guess you could say that Disney's America failed because of sense of place, since it was going to be built close to a battle field.  However, I really think it failed because it was going to show America's history.  It's not a bad thing because people should know, but they were going to show it all with no filter.  They were going to show how slaves were treated how they escaped, not everyone wants to see the reality of that situation.  Psychologically people aren't ready to know everything that happened in the past.  They do not want to see how American's treated certain people, what really happened in the wars we fought in