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• 1 media/leaves.jpg 2019-12-13T17:22:56+00:00 Geography Impacts Lived Experiences 8 plain 2019-12-18T22:58:18+00:00 Application to Cultural Geography
   

  The title of my artwork is “The Other Side of the Tracks”, in which I painted a representation of the environment in which segregated students from the Elsmere region of Glassboro had to walk to their school. Using acrylic paint on a canvas, I included the train tracks, the surrounding trees, the white picket fences in the distance, and the footprints of those who had to follow this path daily. This story of segregated students from Glassboro’s past applies to several facets of cultural geography in which lived experiences shape the way that places are interpreted.

  My mural proposal is one that one that illuminates the varying meanings of place to those whose story is not always discussed. Glassboro is a town which has a rich history of education, and I thought it was important to bring attention to the minority of individuals whose education was sometimes difficult to access. The complexity of the location of the train tracks stuck out to me because what some find mundane holds deeper meaning to others. 
  
  

  The Elsmere train stop was demolished in the 1920s, yet this is where segregated students would get off the train and begin their walk to school, crossing multiple sets of train tracks. This location is dynamic in the fact that it is no longer there, yet its presence is not forgotten. This feeling of exclusion exists for those who remember the story of segregated students in Glassboro, but the location’s exclusionary history is not known to all. For those who are unaware of what once stood there, they have no knowledge of the psychological significance of the train tracks. This spot is always changing, and its’ meanings change depending who remembers what was there. 

  The train tracks were developed through the global processes of expanding new housing and the rise of industrialization. As individuals got more manufacturing and factory jobs in the Philadelphia area, more train stations were necessary for efficient transportation, and more neighborhoods were built to accommodate new commuters. As people became more mobile, access to cheap, fast transportation was created. As the Elsmere station was a result of global processes, it also shaped them by being a stop for a diverse crowd of individuals on their daily activities, like school or work. 
  
  

  However, the no-longer existent Elsmere stop was a representation of social and economic inequalities that were based on geographic separation and exclusion. Historically, African American individuals all over the United States had unequal access to education, resources, and opportunities until well into the 1960s. Robert Tucker writes that, “To call it a train station would be very generous”,  meaning that even the train station provided to Elsmere residents was unequal quality to that of others. Additionally, the station has no photographs from when it was built. The closest depiction of what the train station might have looked like is an old picture from the Williamstown-Mullica Hill line, as found in South Jersey Magazine in 1991 (Pictured Above) As the quality of resources decreased in the Elsmere region, residents were geographically excluded and refined into an area of lesser quality to that of the surrounding area.

  Historically, the experiences of African American students in Glassboro have been experiences that are deeply affected by geographical barriers. These individuals had shaped their meaning of place through their surroundings and by documenting what was and was not available to them. Their fight for equal education and opportunities demonstrates the influence that cultural geography had on their lives as a whole.