Draft

I completely threw out my first draft, and started over. That said, I still feel really nervous about the paper, and I'm having a hard time writing it. I'm posting the draft here (in place of the original blog prompt about drafts). If you have any comments or advice I would love to hear it. I know there are one or two particularly bad (or absent) transitions. I will have those figured out in the final of course.



Hillary Roberts
English 521
22 April 2008

Ice, Ice Baby: Travelogues, National Geographic, and the Arctic in Twentieth Century Popular Imagination

There is something fascinating and fabulous about blankness. The blank face of a clean page, the unfilled outline of a continent, the icy white vastness of the arctic all contain in them the possibility of exploration and discovery. Signifying the boundaries of the known, blankness has long enticed the curiosity of explorers and tantalized the popular imagination. In his essay Geography and Explorers, Joseph Conrad celebrates the profound appeal “Regions Unknown!” - the “exciting spaces of white paper,” that signified the limitations of geographic knowledge in the 19th century. The essay captures something of the profound appeal of the geographic unknown in the popular imagination of the era, and imaginative potency of travel into the blank spaces of the map….

Literally situated on the icy periphery of the known world, the poles have long enticed Western “cartographic fantasies”, or romantic, imaginative visions of the unknown (Yan). Interest in the artic peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when attempts to conquer the “last great frontiers” of the earth sent explores into the icy blank spaces of the map. As one of the least known and certainly least accessible regions of the earth, the arctic represented an exotic and anomalous space, persistently outside beyond the reach of Western knowledge and the influence of civilization. Here is a space in which nature rises up icy, and sublime against the push of Western explorers; where ships shatter like tooth picks in the jaws of the ice, and time and space do not comply with Western norms. For this reason, the persistent blankness of arctic signified the limitations of Western power and knowledge. The very blankness of the region thus typifies it as a sublime and mysterious space, wherein the popular imagination could chart fantastic cartographies on the face of the unknown. As Lisa Bloom explains in Gender on Ice, “if (one) was forbidden to color in the known parts (of the world) in any way he chose, (one) was permitted to do what he liked with the blank spaces, which were all brought together to the same plane of representation,” (1). The romantic appeal of the artic is therefore in the inaccessibility and awesome barrenness of the landscape. Both features mark the space out as a sublime and fantastic region, far removed from the known world; a playground if you will for the Western imagination wherein the heroic explorer looms large against an alien and inhospitable background.
The romantic appeal of Arctic exploration at the turn of the twentieth century is indisputable. However, the role of arctic travel writing in the construction and representation of the arctic in the popular imagination of the twentieth century is a largely neglected area of scholarship. A few recent examinations of arctic travel writing have focused on the popular fascination with exploration of the region. Perhaps most notably, Peter Kitson’s introduction to Travels, Explorations, and Empires and Robert David’s book The Arctic in the British Imagination shed light on the influence arctic travelogues on the popular conception of the region as sublime, and fascinatingly remote space. However, few scholars have examined reciprocal role of popular interest in tales romantic heroism and adventure and the construction travelogues at the turn of the century. My paper will focus on the role increasing what Peter Kitson aptly describes as “public fascination with ice and snow, and with the extremes of human endeavor and hardship,” on the construction of twentieth century travel writing. Specifically, I will frame my investigation with in the context of the popularization of science at the turn of the century, a period which emerging popular science periodicals like National Geographic exploited the public interest in the unknown and tales of adventure to proliferate scientific knowledge among the literate masses. Given the abundance of travel writing from the period, I will focus predominantly on construction of Robert Peary’s much disputed 1909 travelogue, The North Pole, and the influence of the National Geographic Society on its promotion as the preeminent narrative of arctic discovery and heroism of the 20th century. Chiefly, I will argue the text actively exploits popular interest in the tales of Arctic heroism and adventure, and oversteps the boundary between travelogue and self-promoting adventure writing; aimed not at illuminating the icy vastness of the north but at validating the heroism of the explorer.
The power of travel writing derived from its ability to make visible that which is beyond the sight of readers, and to illuminate the landscapes hidden behind the blank spaces on the map. In the early part of the twentieth century, Lisa Bloom explains, “the ability to make a faithful record out of what was previously considered imaginary was regarded as a great modern achievement,” (5). Particularly in the Arctic, the ability to push the bounds of knowledge into the “last great frontiers” of the map represented the “crowning achievement” of four centuries of exploration. For Peary however, “a faithful record” of the polar discovery may easily have been eclipsed by the desire to write “the last of the great adventure stories- a story the world had been waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story which was to be told at last under the folds of the Stars and Stripes,”(298-300). That is not say, his 1909 narrative of reaching the pole is a total forgery, but rather, perhaps better characterized an attempt at writing “the last of the great adventure stories,” featuring him as the patriotic and determined hero. Thus, as Bloom aptly points out, “the ‘faithful record’ made at the North Pole was from the start contested and unstable,” (5).
The 1909 saw a strange and dramatic conflict over the discovery of the pole, which is I think inseperable from the nature of Peary’s subsequent narrative production of the journey. Although the Peary-Cook polar conflict was in its time incendiary, it likely unfamiliar to most of us today. Thus, a brief history of Peary, and the polar conflict will provide useful framework for my discussion of the text. A prominent figure in the history of arctic exploration, Robert Peary’s reputation includes both legitimate discovery and accusations of falsity. Most notably, his often remembered for the controversy which surrounds his claim of reaching the pole in April 1909. Peary’s triumphant declaration, dispatched by telegraph from the north, “Stars and Stripes Nailed to the North Pole,” and later “…the North Pole was reached April 6th by Peary Arctic Club’s expedition, under Commander Peary,” inspired a mixture of awe and confusion, coming as it was within days of Captain James Cook’s own professed discovery of the pole. Contemporary, James Marshall, in 1913 explained the confusion as such, “it was far from certain that this (Peary’s telegraph) was not a hoax, the outcome of the sense of humor of some fantastic individual at Indian Harbor,” since when it arrived, “Dr. Frederick Cook was being acclaimed by the crowned heads of Europe and by the world at large as the discoverer of the North pole,”(79). There could after all be only one discoverer of the pole. Thus, accusations flew back forth between camps about the veracity of either explorers’ alleged discovery of the pole. Predominently criticism of Peary’s expedition in particular focuses on the speed with which his crew made the pole and his ability to maintain a northern course over the moving ice without making frequent, precise geographic measurements (cite). In either case, Bloom explains, “both expedition accounts were purported to contain information and were written in a style of scientific precision….(but) the importance given to science alone could not provide a means to determine justly who the winner might be,” presumably because measurements and calculations can be inaccurate and fakery is always possible (5).
Although doubts surrounded the veracity of both explorers claim, Cook would ultimately prove the loser of the battle for the pole. Demands to see Cooks expedition journals met with excuses until finally a diary was produced. The diary did more to undermine Cook’s claims however; it was Flemming explains “branded a manufacture from beginning to end,” as were the photographs Cook alleged he took on the journey (421). The photos, contemporaries argued, came not from the polar trek but from a previous expedition to Greenland six years before (Flemming 421). Topping it all off, evidence appeared that invalidated Cook’s claim of summating Mt. McKinley in 1906. The ascent never took place, and the alleged photograph of him at the summit was in fact taken on a lower hill (Flemming 421). Declared a fake, Cook became the focal point of public outrage and ultimately fled to South America, thus leaving Peary to enjoy the title of Polar discoverer, presumably by proxy of Cook’s invalidation and willingness of the leading popular scientific society to validate his claim.
Peary’s own journals received little scrutiny, and after a cursory investigation the National Geographic Society, also financial backers of the expedition, proclaimed him the rightful discoverer of the Pole (Flemming 421). The involvement of the National Geographic Society the construction of Peary’s as heroic explorer is undeniable, and palpably present in his text, particularly in society president, Gilbert Grosvenor’s foreword to narrative. Chronicling four centuries of polar exploration, Grosvenor’s foreword endeavors to contextualize Peary’s narrative within a heroic legacy of exploration and discovery. Interestingly, the Grosvenor describes the history of polar exploration in terms of riches, adventure, and danger. For example, “the preceding brief summary,” of exploration he says before moving on to focus on Peary’s achievement explicitly, “gives only an inadequate conception of the immense treasures of money and lives expended by the nations to explore the north ice world and to attain the apex of the earth,” (xxvii). The fantastic language with which Grosvenor describes exploration, emphasizes its heroic quality while belittling its scientific importance; science he suggest is “compensation” for the danger and travail of exploration, not the trophy (xxviii). As he says,
“All efforts to reach the Pole had failed, nothwithstanding the unlimited sacrifice of gold, energy and blood which had been poured out without stint for nearly four centuries. But the sacrifice had not been without compensation. Those who had ventured their lives in the contest had not been actuated solely by the ambition to win a race- to breast the tap first- but to contribute, in Sir John Franklin’s words “to the extension of the bounds of science,’” (xxviii).
While he acknowledges the scientific contribution of exploration to the enrichment of human knowledge, Grosvenor’s language emphasizes I think the notion of heroic conquest and competition above all else. The pole is, according to Grosvenor, “the prize of four centuries of striving,” it’s discovery a “victory,” and “crowning” achievement (xxxii). The foreword thus frames Peary’s achievement as the preeminent event in a long and dangerous enterprise. In so doing, the Grosvenor frames the narrative itself as heroic testimony of adventure and discovery, to which his name gives authority.
The addition of the foreward, like the scientific appendices at the back are a clear attempt at imparting a sense of scientific authority to the an otherwise subjective and scientifically impoverished narrative. As the president of the National Geographic Society, by 1900 a major popular scientific community, Grosvenor lends a clear authority to the narrative. Perhaps, no more so than in his statement of confidence at the end of the narrative that “Robert E. Peary has crowned a life of devoted to the exploration of the icy north and to the advancement of science by hard-won discovery of the North Pole,” and expressed dissaproval of criticism of Peary’s claim (xxxii). Grosvenor even attempts to turn the Peary-Cook controversy in an illustration of Peary’s honor, suggesting that no one but the most stalwart, perservering and honorable men could have bore the “scoffing” and discouragement that accompanied his discovery of the pole (xxxii). He therefore attempts to validate, both in adding his testimony to the text and in framing Peary as a legitimate and heroic explorer, to lend authority to the narrative.
Grosvenor’s efforts in the foreword derive from the close relationship between National Geographic Society and the Peary polar expedition. As financial backers of the expedition, the society was keen on validating his as a hero and the discoverer of the pole. Initiated in 1888 as a professional geographic society, the reign of its sporadic scientific journal as the leading publication among professional geographers ended with the 19th century (Rothenberg 28). The Spanish American War, resulting as it did in the first United States colonies, awakened popular interest in geography and exploration (Rothenberg 32). Responding to increased public interest in the world abroad the society shifted its focus, and its publication, toward reaching popular audiences; the goal increasing membership in the organization by appealing to the national public interest…..