This past fall, I did visual analyses of postcards from the James R. Powell Route 66 Postcard Collection (1920s-1960s) in the Newberry Library in Gold Coast, Chicago, during which I focused on stereotypical portrayals of American Indians. I used these vintage postcards as an object and method to evaluate popular culture expectations and aesthetic signifiers of what make something “Indian” and why these representations endure.
Building on the research I did last fall, I’m about to drive the entirety of Route 66 (Chicago to Santa Monica, CA) to photograph examples of Indian stereotypes I see along the way. I will also purchase contemporary “Native”-esque postcards and tchochkes sold in gas stations, gift shops and at other tourist attractions along Route 66 to create a comparative analysis of the postcards from the Newberry Library and the kitsch I see and collect to examine how/whether the “Native” stereotype has (or has not) evolved since the 1920s-1960s.
I am using a blend of material culture studies and American Indian studies frameworks to treat the Indian kitsch as both object and method to understand the landscape identity of Route 66 and the racial stereotypes that embody it through landscape observation, data collection and interpretive analysis.
The central aim of my project is to document the examples of the “American Indian” stereotype and their “Native” lifestyle through time that has created much of the mystique and touristic allure of Route 66, a cultural landscape that has endured “in part due to the very same effective hype, hucksterism, and boosterism that animated it through its half-century heyday” (roadtripusa.com).
The road trip will take place along the entirety of Route 66—Chicago to Santa Monica, California—over 10 days (July 26 – Aug. 3). Through CC, I will be spending the month of September 2018 writing a dissertation about my findings, and April 2019 will be devoted to organizing the evolution (or lack thereof) of American Indian stereotypes in kitsch in a visual way that will be exhibited as a gallery on Colorado College’s campus and shared in a visual format universally online.
