The New Niagara: Tourism, Technology, and the Landscape of Niagara Falls, 1776–1917 by William Irwin

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 171 consumers and producers over the cultural meaning of nylon (and celluloid, Bakelite, and other synthetic materials) to be extremely suggestive and a model for others to follow. Some readers may feel that Meikle indulges too often in cultural criticism. Thus, for instance, he detects ominous meaning in Edwin E. Slosson’s 1919 best-seller, Creative Chemistry, when Slosson com­ pares chemical polymerization to a financial merger. Meikle reads this as implying that “a well-ordered societywould have the chemical molecular inertness of Bakelite” (p. 70). Likewise, Meikle “recoils” at the comments made in a letter by Pierre du Pont, the chemical company president, about his Lucite acrylic dentures, interpreting them as implying “a degree of control so complete that it aspired to the rigidity of death” (p. 72). Meikle’s extrapolation of a repres­ sive social philosophy from a popularizer’s analogy and an execu­ tive’s facetious remarks illustrates the tendency of the book to stray from cultural history into cultural criticism. This tendency becomes more pronounced as the book moves into the 1960s and ’70s, when plastic came under attack from the environmental movement and writers such as Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. Here Meikle argues that plastic is an exemplar, and a contributing cause, ofpostmodern­ ism and all the sorry mess that it represents: fragmentation, fantasy, malleability, impermanence, the inflation of experience, the devalu­ ation of meaning, the attenuation of things, all of which has led to the rise of a sterile, computer-based world of virtual reality, hyper­ text, and “profound cultural exhaustion” (p. 302). Whether you agree with him or not, Meikle’s critiques are always balanced and carefully reasoned, and they raise important questions about the superficiality ofAmerican culture and how technology has exacerbated that trait. American Plastic is a tour-de-force analysis of the cultural plasticity of one of the most ubiquitous technologies of modern life. It also reveals disturbing insights into the technologyinduced plasticity of culture, indeed of human nature itself. Rutgers University Press deserves to win a design award for this book, which is beautifully made, meticulously proofed, and gener­ ously illustrated. David Rhees Dr. Rhees is executive director of the Bakken Library and Museum. He is cur­ rently conducting research on the history of the medical device industry. The New Niagara: Tourism, Technology, and the Landscape of Niagara Falls, 1776-1917. By William Irwin. University Park, Penn.: Penn­ sylvania State University Press, 1996. Pp. xxiii+276; illustrations, notes, index. $45.00 (cloth) $17.95 (paper). Even as it conjures up images of cheap honeymoon motels and tawdry commercialism, Niagara with its breathtaking falls remains 172 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE one of America’s most compelling natural icons as well as one of the world’s most visited (and studied) tourist attractions. William Irwin’s recent foray into the realm of Niagara studies, The New Niag­ ara, however, takes a different approach to understanding the his­ tory of the mighty waterfall’s popular appeal. In it, he convincingly demonstrates that there was a time when Niagara transcended both kitsch and nature and instead stood as one of the nation’s preemi­ nent symbols of the utopian promise of technology and progress. Between the 1850s and World War I, the efforts of engineers, indus­ trialists, and landscape architects brought a “new” Niagara into be­ ing. With features such as John Roebling’s clear span suspension railway bridge across its gorge and the state-of-the-artNiagara Power Company facility, the hygienically conceived Shredded Wheat bis­ cuit factory, and the carefully landscaped, Olmstead/Vaux-designed state reservation along its banks attracting high praise from tourists and popular commentators, this “new” Niagara, Irwin argues, cap­ tured the American imagination to an extent that the old “natural” Niagara never did. Irwin’s careful documenting of the process through which Niag­ ara was transformed from an icon of nature to an embodiment of technological wonder represents the latest contribution to the schol­ arly examination of the technological sublime—an emotional mood that historians Leo Marx and David Nye have identified as one of the hallmarks of American culture. Irwin’s particular contribution to this discussion is his conclusion...