The tours that were created in the American Guide Series were meant to help Americans “rediscover America.” I helped people from the 1930’s not only navigate the US but also learn much about its history, folk lore, and culture. However, due to this being in the middle of the Great Depression there was also a hope for this guide; to help reinvigorate some Americans. It was going to show the very best of America, and in doing so put some hope and pride in the Americans that lived there. This did have the side effect of ignoring some important aspects. While the American Guide Series did work in providing Americans with a tour of culture in the US it failed to accommodate and show what many people where actually going through.
One of the biggest aspects that was completely ignored was the accommodation for the colored people of the time. This period was really only in the early stages of the Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM)
1. Thus, many of what would change in the future simply had not happened yet. Many places and people in both the South and the North did not have anything to allow colored people to tour. Furthermore, this was something that was discovered when using the Mapping Project. When using the “Navigating the Green Book” tool I tried to find something that overlapped my current map of the American Guide Tour. This could not be done as there were no routes that overlapped my mapped tour. This is further demonstrated in the picture below.
The image shows two maps overlapped. One with green dots shows accommodations for colored people while the other shows my personal mapped tour. As you can see it is not a matter of how people would have experienced it differently. It’s that colored people would not have gotten to experience it at all. The tour that I had chosen from the New York Guide gave a route that showed amazing history of the area and other cultural phenomena. But due to the period, men and women of color would not be able to do what other people could.
When actually looking at the mapping of the New York tour, I noticed a fundamental difference between how the Guide portrayed the US. The guide would often label things with picturesque description. Using things that many could view as inspiring or beautiful. This was completely by design when creating the series. Going back to what was discussed about the American Guide, one must remember why it was made. It was meant to help showcase the “ “true” America to its people” 2. This of course was sacrificing the representation of what Americans were feeling at the time. This is especially poignant when comparing many of the routes to the thousands who migrated west for work. These guides needed to try and give hope to American and if it had shown the unemployment and the desperation that was the migration in the west it would have had the opposite effect. My personal mapping tour showed many luxurious places filled with mansions or economic success. This was in stark contrast to what was being felt but was none the less necessary.
With this mapping project one can begin to understand what was being done to help the overall feeling of the depression; while also showing how people truly felt. This idea is best shown in the comparison image. The lack accommodation shows how there was still a very long way to go in terms of civil rights. With the American Guide and its wording throughout the mapping shows how the FWP was trying to reinvigorate the American People. Mapping gives these opportunities by showing physical primary sources that can be traced throughout history.
Mapped Tour: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/be6a50a50d5982225a5712534d8d24ad/placeholder/index.html
