Sept. 7, 2009
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH: Riding the Line in Arthurdale
By Christopher Worth
The Packard rumbles down a dirt road on the way to what the car's occupant likes to refer to as "The Grand Experiment." It's a self-sustaining village in the middle of rural Appalachia, founded in the state of West Virginia, and as Eleanor Roosevelt sits contemplating in her car on the possibilities for this intentional community, she knows the jury is still out as to whether it even can be considered a success.
The year is 1950, and it is the sunset for a New Deal grand experiment. The Arthurdale community is still riding that shaky line when it comes to evaluating its success. Yes, the Federal government dissolved all the projects having to do with planned communities, but Arthurdale, for one, still has many of its original families' homes sitting there, so it sort of rides the line of what is a success and what is a failure.
As I travel with my brother and our assistant through this state, that foggy, obscure line between success and failure rises up over and over again. When asked by a friend, "Why are you doing this, Chris?" I respond "I need to know the place that gave me rebirth." But more than that I want to know how we can take a state which is consistently ranked lowest in so many subjects on the national level and bring its gifts to the forefront. So for me, this trip is about getting down and dirty with the state's history, in order that I might (along with my brother) better represent it.
I am finding as I travel that the smallest things about West Virginia are what people call the "diamonds in the rough." I can, while sitting in an ice cream shop with a genuine 1950's soda jerk in Ritchie County, see revitalisation at its core. It just takes one family to decide that they want to take pride in their downtown to light the match that sparks true change. That flame is kept burning through an understanding of history and that understanding does not just speak to the past, but it is active in the present. My brother is teaching me that we must be our own conservators of this state's story, our own conservators of the state's struggles; thereby laying a strong foundation, brick by brick, having to do with the strengths that run through the bloodlines of history. So when I think of Eleanor, the New Deal, and the Grand Experiment, I don't think of the past. I think of Obama, I think of the creative class, and I think of every leader who is a common man and woman in West Virginia.
Huntington, for what it's worth, I am calling for a New Deal, understanding that I am not at the forefront of the call, but I am riding a wave which is slowly gaining size and momentum. Like in the city of Grafton, where in a dusty storefront with paint cracking on the tin roof, there too was the seed of change.
The community has made this space into a gallery. Change is unrolling there. New sidewalks, restored buildings....a chance through art, through innovation, through our own New Deal, we have a chance. Rise up, Huntington, and for whatever it's worth, understand that you too are a part of that change, a change that has nothing to do with Obama, nothing to do with old established families or ways, but everything to do with the common person with extraordinary gifts. Until next week...from on the road in West Virginia.
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FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH: Riding the Line in Arthurdale
By Christopher Worth
The Packard rumbles down a dirt road on the way to what the car's occupant likes to refer to as "The Grand Experiment." It's a self-sustaining village in the middle of rural Appalachia, founded in the state of West Virginia, and as Eleanor Roosevelt sits contemplating in her car on the possibilities for this intentional community, she knows the jury is still out as to whether it even can be considered a success.
The year is 1950, and it is the sunset for a New Deal grand experiment. The Arthurdale community is still riding that shaky line when it comes to evaluating its success. Yes, the Federal government dissolved all the projects having to do with planned communities, but Arthurdale, for one, still has many of its original families' homes sitting there, so it sort of rides the line of what is a success and what is a failure.
As I travel with my brother and our assistant through this state, that foggy, obscure line between success and failure rises up over and over again. When asked by a friend, "Why are you doing this, Chris?" I respond "I need to know the place that gave me rebirth." But more than that I want to know how we can take a state which is consistently ranked lowest in so many subjects on the national level and bring its gifts to the forefront. So for me, this trip is about getting down and dirty with the state's history, in order that I might (along with my brother) better represent it.
I am finding as I travel that the smallest things about West Virginia are what people call the "diamonds in the rough." I can, while sitting in an ice cream shop with a genuine 1950's soda jerk in Ritchie County, see revitalisation at its core. It just takes one family to decide that they want to take pride in their downtown to light the match that sparks true change. That flame is kept burning through an understanding of history and that understanding does not just speak to the past, but it is active in the present. My brother is teaching me that we must be our own conservators of this state's story, our own conservators of the state's struggles; thereby laying a strong foundation, brick by brick, having to do with the strengths that run through the bloodlines of history. So when I think of Eleanor, the New Deal, and the Grand Experiment, I don't think of the past. I think of Obama, I think of the creative class, and I think of every leader who is a common man and woman in West Virginia.
Huntington, for what it's worth, I am calling for a New Deal, understanding that I am not at the forefront of the call, but I am riding a wave which is slowly gaining size and momentum. Like in the city of Grafton, where in a dusty storefront with paint cracking on the tin roof, there too was the seed of change.
The community has made this space into a gallery. Change is unrolling there. New sidewalks, restored buildings....a chance through art, through innovation, through our own New Deal, we have a chance. Rise up, Huntington, and for whatever it's worth, understand that you too are a part of that change, a change that has nothing to do with Obama, nothing to do with old established families or ways, but everything to do with the common person with extraordinary gifts. Until next week...from on the road in West Virginia.
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