Upstate Girls; What Became of Collar City

There have been cities in United States that have stood as monuments to the American Dream made manifest. Pittsburg for its steel industry and Detroit for assembling the motor cars that changed the world. The bright promise of progress for all, fueled our rise to power into the optimistic 1950’s when the boom – bust cycle of consumption pressed on The U.S. to look for foreign trade. We globazlized rapidly and “The American Product” has become debt itself. The blue collar class whose manufacturing jobs were a source of productivity and pride has become a permenant underclass in service to those of greater means. The United States current economic upheaval has forced scrutiny of the gross inequities of America’s social divide and the fact that unquestioned exploitation of wealth and power by the few must lead to the end of our current economic values.

As a journalist and activist I have dedicated my life to exploring the how and why of class inequity in America, I am concerned with the internalized social messages that will live on for generations after our economic and social policies catch up with the reality of living on the bottom rung of America’s upwardly mobile society. My project explores the way that money is but a symptom of self worth and a means by which humans separate from each other. Poverty is an emotional rather than physical state with layers of marginalization to cement those who live under them into their place. The economic crisis as it is called has done some to take the moral sting out of being poor, though the conversation remains centered on economic rather than social stimulus relief. Thus indicating that it is those that are recently without money rather than Americans whose ongoing struggles left them un-phased by the headlines.

My project has followed seven women for five years as their escape routes out of generational poverty have lead to further entrapments. I am looking to compile a gererational history of the emotional spiral of those resigned to the lower class in The United States. I plan to use the Getty Grant to continue this work over the next year when the need for nuanced and sustained journalism that is reflective of the social fallout from the crisis that we are in will be crucial, and the responsibility for preserving these stories for history is incumbent.

I have chosen to work in the City of Troy New York, as Labor Historians have argued that Troy, is the prototype of the industrialization of America. The City of 44,000 sits on the banks of the Hudson River 140miles north of New York City. During The Civil War, Troy’s steel processing plants made millions of dollars manufacturing horseshoes, and factored in the victory for the North. In that same period, Hanna Lord Montaque invented the detachable shirt collar and spawned an industry that became the cornerstone of the regional economy, employing over 8000 operatives. Troy became know as “The home of Uncle Sam”, when a butcher named Sam Wilson marked barrels of his meat to be shipped to Union troops with the country U.S. – soldiers joked that it stood for Uncle Sam. Fifty year later, Congress made a proclamation that Uncle Sam would be a symbol of America’s freedom and Troy, New York would officially be considered his home.

The proud aspirations of America’s beginning are seen in stark contrast to Troy’s present social conditions. In 2007 16.3% of all children in Troy were living in households headed by a single female, of these 16% reported income below the U.S. poverty line. Minimum wage jobs with little or no benefits are what most families in Troy survive from. The median income for a family of three is 16,796$. Since 1990, the only increase in population and revenue in this part of Upstate New York has come via an intrastate migration from the south (primarily the boroughs of New York City). The pattern is attributed to growing number of prisoners housed in the region’s major correctional complexes. As the majority of the manufacturing businesses move overseas, prisons have become the areas fastest growing service industry and the fluid boundaries of their population have altered Troy’s domestic and social landscape. Local law enforcement’s reaction to the changing complexion of their predominately white community has been to make more arrests. Record numbers of males from Troy’s lower income population is now incarcerated; collateral damage in The Rennsslear County Sheriff’s battle against a self-fulfilling prophesized growing crime rate. The culture of incarceration among the poor has altered traditional, domestic gender roles and family dynamics between husbands and wives and mother’s and sons has suffered.

The Final output for The Upstate Girls project will be over four platforms;

• A traveling gallery installation that will combine a print series edited along the chronology of each woman’s story that will show her emotional shift as she sees possibilities for the future become more distant - and video installations that should create a visceral space to experience the chaos, boredom, futility and desperation of being marginalized in The Untied States.
• A disposable book will be designed and printed in graphic novel layout to give historical context to very personal contemporary stories. These graphic novels will be used in participatory workshops with teenagers in Upstate New York neighborhoods similar to Troy, in an effort to engage them with the history that has such social relevance in their lives today.
  
  To facilitate these workshops, I have arranged to partner with The Sanctuary for Independent Media; an organization located directly in the Girls’ neighborhood and dedicated to fostering social change through art as activism and the Rensselaer County Historical Society to ensure historic accuracy and further the society's mission: "Every Face Every Story".
  
  By using the graphic novel as a study guide and example, the women will respond by creating their own visual record via gathering photographs and ephemera and writing passages to bear witness to their own past and validate the culture that has been created by our contemporary social policies.
  
  The terms graphic novel and scrapbook will be interchangeable as they relate to the history that has shaped the Troy neighborhood and the region in Upstate, New York where we will concentrate our efforts.
  
• There will be an expanded online component of the series to be released as a series over a year,
• and, finally I will use the video that I have and will continue to gather to produce a feature length documentary – also to be released via our web blog www.therawfile.org.