The Geographical Bulletin

ISSN 0731-3292

November, 1984 Vol. 26

GAMMA THETA UPSILON

Officers

President Dr. Michael Thaller, Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin 53186

First Vice President Dr. Douglas C. Munski, University of North Dakota

Grand Forks, North Dakota 58202

Second Vice President Dr. Virgil Holder, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601

Secretary Dr. O. Orland Maxfield, University of Arkansas

Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701

Comptroller Dr. Leon C. Hallman, Stephen F. Austin State University

Nacogdoches, Texas 75961

Historian Dr. Alice T. M. Rechlin, Valparaiso University

Valparaiso, Indiana 46383

Immediate Past President Dr. Benjamin F. Richason, Jr., Carroll College

Waukesha, Wisconsin 53186

Student Representatives Mr. Christopher Huggard, University of Arkansas

Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701 Mr. David Moon, Valparaiso University

Valparaiso, Indiana 46383

All addresses should include : Department of Geography.

Omega Omega (Alumni) Chairman

Mr. Lawrence Handley 6238 Canal Boulevard New Orleans, Louisiana 70124

© Copyright by GAMMA Theta Upsilon, 1984 Printed in the United States of America

Editorial Policy

Contributors to The Geographical Bulletin of Gamma Theta Upsilon should follow the general specifications noted be­low:

1. All manuscripts should be typed double spaced.

bers in the manuscript must be in parenthesis.

2. Margins should be 1 Y2" 5. All tables must be typed on all four sides of 8Y2" by double spaced on sepa-11 " paper. rate sheets.

3. Typing must be on one 6. side of the page only.

4. Footnotes must be typed double spaced, numbered and included on a sepa­rate sheet-not at the bot­toms of the individual pages . Reference num-

All line drawings must be in finished form ready for reproduction. They must include titles, source of data when applicable, and figure number when there is more than one in a manuscript.

Send all manuscripts to: Dr. Robert M. Ward, Editor The Geographical Bulletin

Department of Geography and Geology Eastern Michigan University

Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197

The editor of The Geographical Bulletin and its Board of Di­rectors are not responsible for the facts, opinions, or state­ments of the authors for the articles contained in this vol­ume.

"If you are planning to change your residence or office in the near future, please remember to inform the editor of The Geographical Bulletin."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editor's Comments: Guest Editorial. New Opportunities in Historical Geography by Marshall

Page

McLennan (Professor, Eastern Michigan University) 5

Land Use Related Adjustments to Aquifer Depletion in Southwestern Kansas by M. Duane Nellis (Ass't. Professor, Kansas State University) . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . 10

The Syrian Tabqa Dam: Its Development and Impact by Monib EI-Khatib (Graduate student, University of Damascus-Syria) ............................... 19

A Primer in Scientific Geographic Research Terminology: Implications for Teaching Geography Majors by Sharafat Khan (Heath/Zenith Data System, Inc.) .............. .. ...... .. ...... ..... .. 29

Research Note

Just Scratching the Surface: Geographers and the Mining West by Randall Rohe (Professor, University of Wisconsin Center-Waukesha County) 35

News from the Chapters of Gamma Theta Upsilon ... 47

New Opportunities in Historical Geography: Guest Editorial

Marshall McLennan

Eastern Michigan University

Traditionally universities and colleges have served as the employer of oppor­tunity for aspiring geographers. The "baby boom generation" has graduated from the nation's universities, however, and its offspring won't make a signifi­cant numerical impact upon the hal­lowed halls of higher academia until late in the next decade. Demographics have dictated a contraction of the traditional employment market, and it behooves to­day's geography students to seek other outlets for useful application of the geographer's set of expertises.

Alternative employment opportuni­ties have proven particularly hard to come by for aspiring cultural and his­torical geographers. Consequently, the Department of Geography & Geology at Eastern Michigan University has intro­duced an applied graduate program in historic preservation planning, which was initiated in 1979.' More than thirty indi­viduals have now graduated from this program. Admittedly entry-level career positions in historic preservation are competitive, but not to the same degree as is the case with university-level teaching positions in geography. De­spite a contraction during the economic recession of 1981-83, the long-term trend of cultural resource management as an employment field, in its various dimen­sions, has been one of growth. This trend has resumed in 1984, and provides ca­reer opportunities both for cultural-his­torical and urban-economic geogra­phers.

Cultural resource management en­compasses a broad spectrum of activi­ties. While geographers would not nor­mally expect to seek positions with libraries or art or archeology museums, cultural resource management also in­cludes jobs with historic house mu­seums, historic farms, pioneer and other types of historic villages, historic district commissions, historical societies, fed­eral agencies, especially the National Park Service, State Historic Preservation Of­fices (SHPO) and state park systems, municipal or county planning depart­ments, community development agen­cies, and private consulting firms. In

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terms of roles, job activities in cultural resource management can be divided into areas of conservation, planning, administration, or interpretation, though in any given job there is usually some overlap.

It is primarily in the areas of planning and interpretation that traditional geo­graphic concepts and skills are most ap­pliable. Because of recent trends and developments 'in historic preservation, certain concepts and methodologies in cultural-historic and urban-economic ge­ography have emerged as highly rele­vant to the field. 2 The nature of cultural resources deemed worthy of preserva­tion and interpretation to the public has broadened with time. Initially only na­tionally significant historical sites such as Mt. Vernon, The Hermitage, and In­dependence Hall were protected . Early in the twentieth century the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiq­uities took steps to preserve individual buildings associated with our colonial ancestors. The notion of "cultural re­source" broadened still further during the 1920s and 30s to include colonial and culturally exotic townscapes. Colonial Williamsburg gave rise to the corpo­rately managed historic settlement, while Charleston and New Orleans introduced the ordinance-protected " historic dis­trict" as a technique for preservation. The value placed upon townscape was more that of historic ambiance or sense of time and place than of the architectural merit of individual buildings. Architectural merit of the individual building as distinct from its historic associations emerged as a significant rationale for preservation during the 1950s.

The National Register for Historic Places came into being during the 1930's. Listing on the Register initially was lim­ited to national landmarks. This changed, however, with passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Since that time, sites, buildings, structures, dis­tricts and objects of national, state or lo­cal significance may be listed. This rep­resents a considerable broadening of what is deemed an important cultural resource. Each place listed must be sig-

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nificant in historical, architectural, arche­ological or cultural terms. The National Register defines historical significance very broadly. Among other things, a place may have historical significance if it has association with, or is representa­tive of, the agricultural, commercial, in­dustrial, or transport history of the lo­cality, or for that matter, if it is associated with the settlement history of an area . This opens up the National Register nomination process to associating build­ings, structures, and other types of places with occupance strategies (or genres de vie) of the past. Here is a perspective that cultural-historical geographers under­stand and can work with : the interpre­tation of relict features in the cultural landscape associated with prior occu­pance sequences.

A statement of significance must be prepared as part of each nomination. When a historic district is being nomi­nated, the statement of significance in­terprets the built environment as a cul­tural or historic landscape that is a product of settlement history, of eco­nomic history, or some other theme. This statement of significance assumes con­ceptual and analytical dimensions for which the cultural geographer is, by training, uniquely prepared. Most indi­viduals employed in preservation plan­ning (the job area most associated with the preparation of National Register nominations) have been trained in ar­chitectural history. Many of them have a bias toward high style buildings, urban areas, and the unique cultural resource. Most cultural geographers, on the other hand, are biased in favor of common buildings and folk architecture, rural areas (which more clearly reflect the regional sense of place than urban landscapes), and the representative cultural resource. Cultural geographers are also better equipped to research and write a mean­ingful statement relating the built envi­ronment to the cultural history of the community than most architectural his­torians, and when it comes to justifying the nomination of a rural historic dis­trict, geographers have a better feel for the land as cultural landscape.3 The cul-

tural geographer, more than any other academician, is capable of interpreting the settlement patterns, agricultural sys­tems, field organization, the significance of woodlots, the cadastral survey sys­tem, the cultural associations of dwell­ing and barn types, and the relationship of all of these with the characteristic to­pography and other environmental ele­ments.

Recently two new types of National Register nominations have been cre­ated: the multiple resource nomination and the thematic nomination. Both are intended to facilitate and accelerate the nomination process. In a multiple re­source nomination, all cultural re­sources within the survey area are nominated collectively rather than in­dividually. A thematic nomination al­lows all places associated with the se­lected theme to be entered as a single nomination . For instance our historic preservation program at Eastern Michi­gan University has recently been pro­vided funding assistance by the State Historic Preservation Office (every state has one) to prepare a thematic nomi­nation for all deserving Greek Revival buildings in rural Washtenaw County. One might also collectively nominate all surviving Coast Guard life saving sta­tions along the coast of Michigan or all country grist mills in Arkansas. Again, the nomination must include an essay analyzing the history and significance of the particular elements of the built en­vironment under scrutiny. This is pure historical geography.

The National Park Service, the federal agency with primary historic preserva­tion responsibilities, recently further am­plified the potential contributions cul­tural geographers can make as career preservationists. In 1978 the Department of Interior provided funds to the Mas­sachusetts State Historic Preservation Office to develop a "pilot" cultural re­source management plan. The Massa­chusetts SHPO, in turn, contracted with a team of consultants under the direc­tion of geographers from Clark Univer­sity to develop a conceptual framework and prepare a management plan based

on that framework.4 The Clark team drew upon a group of geography concepts to develop their plan. Among the concepts incorporated in the pilot plan were re­gional analysis, human agency in effect­ing landscape change, genre de vie, se­quent occupance, central place hierarchy, Philbrick's "areal functional organiza­tion" structure,S and Whebell's corridor model of regional landscape develop­ment.6 For instance, the identification and mapping of historic routes can provide a basis for predicting where the greatest density of relict features will be found.

Based on the pilot model developed by the Clark University geographers,1 the National Park Service has mandated that all State Historic Preservation Offices implement Resource Protection Plal'l­ning Process (RP3) projects. All SHPO agencies have been sponsoring archi­tectural surveys for at least a decade. The RP3 project envisions that each state will begin to analyze their accumulated data bases from the viewpoint that elements in the cultural landscape are not isolated features, but are related to each other in time and space through processes op­erative in local communities and re­gional systems. Thematic cultural land­scapes are to be ordered by temporal stages (sequent occupance) and re­gions. For instance the Michigan SHPO is currently attempting to piece together the early twentieth century cultural land­scape in southeastern Michigan that was directly associated with the evolution of the automobile industry. This calls for aggregating together as an associated landscape the automobile factories, tire factories, parts manufacturers, gas sta­tions, motels, the mansions of the auto executives, worker housing, and the like. In a later sequence, one can see the ini­tial automobile-influenced landscape as evolving to include the whole suburban landscape phenomenon with subdivi­sions, shopping centers, drive-in movies and auto-oriented commercial strips, al­though landscapes this recent have not yet been subjected to architectural sur­veys.

To the cultural-historical geographer the individual buildings that comprise the

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architectural data base of a SHPO agency have limited significance. Their signifi­cance grows as they are analytically in­tegrated into a regional cultural land­scape. SHPO preservationists trained in architectural history, and even in urban design, however, are struggling with im­plementation of the RP3 project. A re­cent graduate of our program has just been hired by a SHPO agency specifi­cally to develop their RP3 project. Al­though this individual is not a geogra­pher, she has been trained in the context of historic preservation to analyze re­gional American cultural landscapes. It is to be hoped that other SHPO agencies will also realize that historical geogra­phers are trained in the perspectives needed to realize the full potential of the RP3 program.

This editorial has been written pri­marily for the benefit of would be cul­tural and historical geographers. Urban­economic geographers already enjoy applied employment opportunities in planning careers. Nevertheless, it should be noted that historic preservation plan­ning also encompasses concern for in­tegrating comprehensive preservation objectives into community master plans, for market and demographic analysis re­lating to downtown commercial revital­ization, and for community or neighbor­hood development. For regional planners agricultural land preservation is a grow­ing concern, and linking agricultural land preservation with historic and scenic preservation in rural areas provides for useful alliances. For instance the use of historic easement or historic district techniques can sometimes complement the preservation of agricultural land.

Turning now from planning to inter­pretation, aspiring cultural-historical geographers should be aware that heri­tage interpretation is emerging as a new career area.s In the past the design of in­terpretive programs for historic mu­seums, villages and parks was a part-time responsibility of historic administrators. For the most part the result was a mere labeling of artifacts, or perhaps a restag­ing of colonial period weaving or can­die-dipping. Today many national and

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state parks, pioneer villages and other historic facilities hire or contract profes­sional interpretive planners to identify interpretive themes, integrate or design interpretive programs, and evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs. Cul­tural geographers have potential exper­tise in planning programs that interpret occupance strategies, sequential occu­pance, folk architecture, cemeteries and other elements of the cultural land­scape.

Professional interpretation is also be­ginning to expand into an innovative new area, community interpretation, by which a community's cultural, historical, and recreational resources are identified and an interpretive master plan developed to foster tourism and attract new econom­ically desirable businesses as well as to promote community pride by means of planned community interpretive events. Because of the popularity of historic re­sources with tourists and because they have become identified with the quality of life, there are some indications that RP3 and community interpretation may become interactive.

While traditional geographic training in many ways provides an ideal prepa­ration for working in a planning or inter­pretation capacity in cultural resource management, coursework in architec­tural history, architectural surveys, his­toric preservation and heritage and community interpretation also comprise necessary educational components.

In sum, new directions in historic preservation and heritage interpretation provide opportunistic employment out­side of academia for cultural-historical geographers who are prepared to dem­onstrate the relevance of their educa­tional preparation to potential employ­ers. General ignorance as to what geographic training entails is an obsta­cle to exploiting these employment op­portunities, but if enough historical geographers sell themselves and the competence associated with their disci­pline, the employment opportunities will expand. Given the concern in historic preservation today for historic districts, townscapes, rural preservation, historic

landscapes, and ethnic landscapes, the reality is that cultural-historical geogra­phers, who see cultural landscapes, re­lict features, and even architectural style as products of cultural process and his­tory, and who are prepared to analyze individual landscape elements not merely in terms of stylistic ornamentation but also in terms of their relationships to each other as parts of regional cultural sys­tems, have a broader conception of cul­tural resources than most architectural historians.

The last comment is not intended to denigrate architectural historians. They are specialists, while we are generalists. But as generalists, it is our opportunity to generalize and to conceptualize. Here­tofore, polemic has substituted, in pres­ervation, for an objective theoretical base. The Clark University geographers have begun the process of providing a theo­retical base for cultural resource man­agement, and happily for us, the con­ceptual foundations are drawn from cultural geography.

FOOTNOTES

1. Griffith, Gregory, " Preservation Eastern," Michigan Plan­ner, v. I , no. 2 (Spring 1981): 13. In 1980 the program received the Award of Merit from the Historical Society of Michigan for innovative programming.

2. Ford, Larry, "Historic Preservation and the Sense of Place," Growth & Change, v. 5 (1974): 33-37; Ibid., " Historic Preservation and the Stream of Time: The Role of the Geographer," Historical Geography Newsletter, v. 5 (19751: 1-15; Ibid., " Saving the Cities : Urban Preservation in America," Focus, v. 30 (Sept.- Oct. 1979); John A. Jakie and Roben Janiskee, "Why Covered Bridges? Toward the Management of Historical Landscapes-The Case of Perke County. Indiana." in Ralph F. Ehrenberg, ed., Pattern and Process: Research in Historical Geography (Washington. D.C.: Howard University Press, 1975): 193- 201 ; Roben L. Janiskee, " City Trouble, the Pastoral Retreat, and Pioneer

America : A Rationa le for Rescu ing the Middle Land­scape," Pioneer America, v. 8 (January 1976): 1-7; Anhur Krim, Nonhwest Cambridge: Repon, Survey of Architec­tura l History in Cambridge (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press-Cambridge Historical Commission. 1977); Ibid., Three-Deckers of Dorchester: An Architectural Historical Survey (Boston : Boston Redevelopment Authority, 1978); Peirce Lewis, " The Future of the Past: Our Clouded Vision of Historic Preservation," Pioneer America, v. 7 (1975): 1-20; Ibid .. " The Right Kind of Preservation on a Creative Scale Can Save Our Disappearing Downtowns," Smith­sonian, v. 6 (1975): 35- 41 ; David Lowenthal, " Age and Anifact : Dilemmas of Appreciation," in D.W. Meinig, ed., The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes (N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 1979): 103- 128; Lowenthal and Marcus Binney. Our Past Before Us. Why Do We Save 117 (Lon­don : Temple Smith, 1981 ); Lowenthal, " The Place of the Past in the American Landscape," in Geographies of the Mind, ed. Lowenthal and Manyn J. Bowden (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1976): 89- 117; Ian M. Matley, " The Eval­uation and Preservation of the Cultural Landscape," in Applications of Geographic Research. ed. Harold A. Win­ters and Marjorie K. Winters (Lansing : Depanment of Ge­ography, Michigan State University, 19771: 61 - 73; and Roben M. Newcomb, Planning the Past (Hamden, Conn.: The Shoe String Press, 1979). Although now dated, see also John A. Jakie, Past Landscapes: A Bibliography for Historic Preservationists Selected From the Literature of Historical Geography (Monticello, III. : Council of Planning Librarians, 1974).

3. Folklife and some landscape arch itects also have this feel for the interaction between man and the land. See the William Tish ler and Howard Marsha ll papers in New Di­rections in Rural Preservation (Wash ington, D.C.: Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, U.S. Depanment of Interior, 1980).

4. Seager, Jon i, and Michael Steinil2, " Historical Geography and Cultura l Resource Management: The Massachusetts Experience," paper presented at the Eastern Historical Ge­ography Association/ Ontario Historical Geographers joint meeting, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, October, 1979.

5. Philbrick, A. K., "Principles of Areal Functional Organ iza­tion in Regiona l Human Geography," Economic Geog­raphy, v. 33 (October, 1957).

6. Whebell, C. F. J., " Corridors: A Theory of Urban Settle­ment," Annals, Association of American Geographers, v. 59 (March 1969) : 1-26.

7. Seager, Joni, and Michael Steinil2, Cultural Resources in Massachusetts : A Model for Management (Boston: Mas­sachusetts Historical Commission. August 1979).

8. Cherem, Gabriel, " The Professional Interpretor: Agent for an Awakening Giant," Journal of Interpretation, v. 2, no. 1 (1977) : 3-16.

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