MDDM "Another Slave-Colony"

Sun Dec 30 03:20:12 CST 2001

Now this is why I do the research.  Yes and no, to th'
bot' of youse ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> Bandwraith:
> 
> > snip
> 
> > Pynchon's M and D are almost total fabrications of
> > his creativity. As little is known about the
> > historical M and D now as before the novel, except
> > a few tidbits. They have been created almost out
> > of whole cloth.

> I'd say that quite a bit of biographical research
> has informed the characterisations of M & D. I think
> that it's in the portrayals of Wicks and the family
> where Pynchon's creative imagination has had freer
> rein.

Without even remotely having access to everything
Pynchon might have taken into consideration, the
following have been esp. useful in leading me to what
I could get my hands on and suggesting how any of it
might have been utilized ...

Clerc, Charles.  Mason & Dixon & Pynchon.
   Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000.

See here esp. Chs. IV ("Fact," pp. 39-52), V ("Fact
and Structure," pp. 53-56), VI ("Fact and Fiction,"
pp. 57-86) and VII ("Fiction," pp. 87-124).  From Ch.
VI ...

"Pynchon hues closely to facts in the chronology of
the two men's lives and their work from the beginnings
in England.  He supplies background about their
relationships with family and friends around
Gloucestershire and Durham.  Other incidents involve
flights of fancy ..." (p. 57)

Clerc's book also handily includes, albeit without
much of its technical data, the Journal of Mason and
Dixon, only first made widely available as ...

Mason, Charles and Jeremiah Dixon.
   The Journal of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.
   Ed. A. Hughlett Mason.  Philadelphia: American
   Philosophical Society, 1969.

But do see also here ...

Foreman, David.  "Historical Documents Relating to
   Mason & Dixon." Pynchon and Mason & Dixon.  Ed.
   Brooke Horvath and Irving Malin.  Newark: U of
   Delaware P, 2000.  143-66

Which is in many ways (documentation not being the
least of them) even more helpful here than Clerc's
full-length study.  Sez Foreman ...

"To claim that Pynchon 'sticks to the facts' is an
overstatement.  For each shred of evidence in favor of
the novel's historical authenticity, there is a moment
of anachronism and absurdity." (p. 151)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=59657&sort=date

Foreman, by the way, posted several times to this
list, and observations that eventually made their way
into his essay can be found in the List Archives ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&keywords=foreman

Anyway, from what I can tell, far more is known about
Mason and Dixon's activities during the Line survey,
or even the Transit of Venus expedition, than about
their prior, much less their early, and/or personal,
lives, as reflected in, say, the relative wighting of
material in the most recent work on the two ...

Danson, Edwin.  Drawing the Line: How Mason and
   Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America.
   New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

Sure, the book is explicitly about "drawing the Line,"
but, still, Danson devotes not even all of three pages
(51-3) to introducing Mason, and not quite even as
much (53-5) to Dixon, whom he calls "a somewhat
shadowy figure" (p. 53), writing that "One cannot help
feel there are facts about Jeremiah the passage of
time has erased" (p. 54).  Point is, Pynchon didn't
necessarily have all that much to go on here.  What's
interesting is what he did with what was available,
e.g., ...

Robinson, H.W. "Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779)--A
   Biographical Note," Proceedings of the American
   Philosophical Society, Vol. 94, No. 3 (June 1950):
   272-4

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=59727&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=59732&sort=date

There seems not only much filling in of details, but
much expansion, connecting of the already known. 
Don't get me started on scientific instrumentation ...

But here's one of Foreman's sources that I don't have,
but which seems as if it might be particularly useful,
so if anyone wants to send along a copy ...

Cope, Thomas D.  "A Frame of Reference for Mason
   and Dixon."  Proceedings of the Pennsylvania
   Academy of Science 19 (1945):   -  .

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9903&msg=36315&sort=date

Also ...

Cummings, Hubertis M.  The Mason and Dixon Line:
   Story for a Bicentenary 1763-1963.  Harrisburg,
   PA: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1963.   

Hollis, H.P.  "Jeremiah Dixon and His Brother."
   Journal of the British Astronomical Association
   44 (1934):   -  .

Latrobe, John H.B.  The History of Mason and Dixon's
   Line.  Philadelphia: Historical Society of
   Pennsylvania, 1855.

Latrobe, apparently, seems a particular influence not
only on Pynchon, but on the at least one other
historical novel about Mason and Dixon out there as
well ...

Lefever, Barbara Susan.  The Stargazers.
   York, PA: Printing Express, 1986.

Rept., apparently, in Westminster, MD, by Family Line
Publications in 1991.  Again from Foreman ...

"Another important source for Pynchon's
characterization of both Masona nd Dixon is a document
that predates the Civil war.  In 1854, John H.B.
Latrobe delivered an address, 'The History of Mason
and Dixon's Line' ....  In a moement of 'very idle
speculation,' Latrobe attempts to determine the
characters of the surveyors by analyzing the
signatures that appear in Mason's journal.  Mason,
claims Latrobe, 'from these small hints ... was a
cool, deliberate, pains taking man, never in a hurry
[...].'  In contrast, dixon's signature is not the
consistent, uniform mark of his partner:

[...] I infer that he was a younger man, a more active
man, a man of impatient spirit and nervous teperament,
just such a man as worked best with a sobersided
colleague."

[...]

"In The Stargazers, a novel remarkably similar to
Pynchon's work in many respects, Barbara Susan Lefever
also portrays the two according to Latrobe's design. 
Lefever's Mason is the older, strong-willed,
advice-dispensing astronomer.  Dixon is less
restrained.  In Lefever's novel, Dixon gives in to
temptation while in Cape Town, succumbing to 'the
young South Sea Islander with the long flowing hair.' 
Pynchon's contribution to Mason's and Dixon's story is
a reiteration of the pesronalities as they were
originally invented by Latrobe's graphological
analysis and subsequently perpetuated by later
historians.  Pynchon's Mason, the sober and uptight
straight man, and his Dixon, reckless and 'ever
seeking to feel something he'd hitherto not felt,'
have been characterized as such a complementary pair
since before the Civil War ([M&D, p.] 764)." (pp.
157-8; bracketed ellipses mine)

But, having neglected it earlier, at least I've now a
copy of Lefever's novel on the way.  Will report back ...

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