Brinkman, Joshua T. (Author)
Hirsh, Richard F. (Author)
This article argues that the welcoming of wind turbines in midwestern farming communities, the so-called PIMBY ("Please in My Backyard") phenomenon, constitutes only the most recent expression of a historical process of farmers forming an ultramodern identity, one that still goes largely unappreciated by relatively backward city residents. We conclude that farmers undertook a two-step process to develop a modern identity that incorporated rural values. In the first step, beginning early in the twentieth century, agrarians employed a discourse of rural capitalistic modernity to combat urban yokel stereotypes within the context of a broader rural-urban conflict. This rural capitalistic modernity strengthened during the cold war until it transformed, in the second step, into the current ultramodern discourse. Wind turbines, in addition to providing economic benefits, function ontologically to maintain an identity of rural citizens as savvy producers and users of technology, and to deflect stereotypes imposed by their urban cousins.
...More
Article
Byczynski, John;
(2014)
My Father's Past, My Children's Future: Agrarian Identity and a Powerline in Minnesota, 1974--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB001421779/)
Thesis
Miller, Ethan Zane;
(2010)
The Cultural Logics of the Liberal Self in Early 20th Century U.S. Anthropology
(/isis/citation/CBB001567200/)
Book
Alejandra Uslenghi;
(2016)
Latin America at Fin-de-Siecle Universal Exhibitions: Modern Cultures of Visuality
(/isis/citation/CBB276690143/)
Book
Christopher C. Gillis;
(2015)
Still Turning: A History of Aermotor Windmills
(/isis/citation/CBB413642563/)
Book
Michael J. Lansing;
(2015)
Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics
(/isis/citation/CBB453507115/)
Article
Saffell, Cameron;
(2014)
An Alternative Means of Field Research: Extending Material Culture Analysis to Farm Implements
(/isis/citation/CBB001421773/)
Article
Simons, Peter;
(2015)
Aviation's Heartland: The Flying Farmers and Postwar Flight
(/isis/citation/CBB001422240/)
Article
Anne Effland;
(2021)
Small Farms/Family Farms: Tracing a History of Definitions and Meaning
(/isis/citation/CBB720739392/)
Article
Carmen V. Harris;
(2019)
The South Carolina Home in Black and White: Race, Gender, and Power in Home Demonstration Work
(/isis/citation/CBB904806755/)
Article
Albert G. Way;
(2023)
The Grass Problem: Agrostology, Agriculture, and Environmental Transformation in the New South
(/isis/citation/CBB300240604/)
Article
Prodöhl, Ines;
(2013)
Versatile and Cheap: A Global History of Soy in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001421542/)
Article
Mary Summers;
(2021)
A Dog with a Bone: A Critique of Paul Taylor’s Small-Farm Essentialism
(/isis/citation/CBB519115951/)
Book
Sarah Vogel;
(2021)
The farmer's lawyer: the North Dakota nine and the fight to save the family farm
(/isis/citation/CBB272151265/)
Article
Beatrix Hoffman;
(2019)
"¡Viva La Clinica!": The United Farm Workers' Fight for Medical Care
(/isis/citation/CBB294413696/)
Book
Whayne, Jeannie M.;
(2011)
Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South
(/isis/citation/CBB001200642/)
Book
Nancy K. Berlage;
(2016)
Farmers Helping Farmers: The Rise of the Farm and Home Bureaus, 1914-1935
(/isis/citation/CBB290230957/)
Book
Tichi, Cecelia;
(1987)
Shifting gears: Technology, literature, culture in modernist America
(/isis/citation/CBB001180124/)
Book
Axelrod, Jeremiah B. C.;
(2009)
Inventing Autopia: Dreams and Visions of the Modern Metropolis in Jazz Age Los Angeles
(/isis/citation/CBB001230674/)
Thesis
Portnow, Allison Kerbe;
(2011)
Einstein, Modernism, and Musical Life in America, 1921--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001567274/)
Thesis
Leif Christian Tornquist;
(2016)
Propagating the Divine: Protestant Modernism and the Rise of Anglo-American Eugenics
(/isis/citation/CBB305980112/)
Be the first to comment!