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Harvey Graff's Latest Book: Roping in The Dallas Myth
What historian could resist uncovering the history of a city that proudly proclaims that it has no history? This was precisely the challenge Harvey Graff, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies and Professor of English and History at The Ohio State University and former faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas, took on. Clearly Dallas had a past, but no one wanted to talk about it. By sketching out the actual narrative of Dallas' history and contrasting it to myths of the city's origins and "The Dallas Way" of governance, Graff explains how Dallas' desire to position itself as a powerful player on the national and international stage proceeds from a civic emphasis on economic progress at the expense of investment in infrastructure, democracy, and the environment. Although the city continues to be haunted by its history-not the least of which is the legacy of JFK's assassination in 1963-Dallas presents itself as the quintessential American city, the home of Dallas, the TV show that epitomized 1980s materialism and glamour, and styling its NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys, as "America's Team." Dallas' construction of itself as a mecca of self-promotion and limitless possibilities for the rugged individual has resulted in the city supporting business interests while ignoring the needs of the poor, always emphasizing the private over the public. The result has been the division of Dallas into wealthy, Anglo sections and ghettoized sections populated by Latinos and African Americans.
Given Graff's strong criticism of Dallas' civic choices as racist, classist, and environmentally damaging, it's hardly surprising that there have been some negative reactions to his book in Dallas. The publisher of D Magazine, the city's self-promotional magazine, wrote a special foreword to the September issue bashing both Graff and the book. Graff however, expected some fallout, and says he has been pleased at how well the book has been received by the majority of Dallasites and Texans, where it has been selling well in mainstream bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders. Graff was invited to speak about his work on a talk radio show in Dallas in August, where most callers expressed their interest in his book and support for Graff's project.
Although the book takes Dallas as its case study-based on the extremity of Dallas' effacing of its own history, construction of a city based on imported urban design templates, a strategy that Graff terms mimetic and monumental, and privileging the interests of business over people and environment-Graff points out that part of the book's project is to lay out a method for "reading" a city. In addition to uncovering Dallas' unwritten history, Graff combines socio-economic and cultural studies approaches to interpret the city through its policy, architecture, and demographics, using history as social criticism to comment on the characteristics that define Dallas as a prominent city disconnected from its history, environment, and people. In light of the methodology Graff's book offers, the Social Science History Association's 2008 meeting in October held a session on The Dallas Myth where four scholars from different areas of expertise discussed the book, and Graff responded to their comments.
One of the points Graff's reading of Dallas makes is about the power of myth: Dallas has constructed a fictional version of its history by which the city operates defines itself. It doesn't matter that this history is a myth, because the fact that Dallas lives by it makes the myth true. Graff's book demonstrates the value of holding a city's mythologized narrative up to the light of history, to see what the myth may be obscuring.
The Dallas Myth: The Making and Unmaking of an American City (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2008), $34.95.
