This haunting project was written and composed in order to explain the life and legacy of Frederick Pettengill, including his continued presence on the Bates College campus and how it manifests itself. To accomplish this, the project is divided into 5 sections: Introduction, Context, Process, Interpretation, and Social Media.
The introduction, which you are currently reading, will broadly explain what you should expect to encounter in this project. By the end of the five individually explained sections, you should have a general understanding of the purpose of the project.
The context section that follows contains a detailed biography of Frederick “Pat” Pettengill’s life. Covering from his birth, through his education at Bates College and the University of Pennsylvania, followed by his experience in the military during World War II and the Korean War, his marriage to Ursula Prater, and finally, some notable words said about him in important moments in his life that shed light on his character.
Next is the process section, which contains a recount of my experience compiling this project, what information I came across, and how it helped form the final product. By explaining my thought process as I underwent creating this haunting, it should reveal why certain information is included or excluded and what or why it contributes to the haunting in a positive way.
Subsequently is the interpretation section, the most important part of the haunting. Its importance lies in its elaboration on the varying societal implications of the haunting and my thoughts as I created it. It brings in primary sources relating to Frederick and Ursula Pettengill as well as works by Edina Harbinja and Avery Gordon to explain the societal relevance of technological haunting and the manner in which haunting can indicate not only ghosts and ghouls but forgotten systems and institutions. By the end of this section, you will have a better understanding of my own views on the matter as well as how everything comes together and, well, matters.
Lastly, is the social media section, which, in other words, is the haunting itself: a Twitter account. For the haunting, I made a Twitter account under Frederick Pettengill’s name, including pictures from throughout his life, quotes from people in his life, and other relevant comments. In some instances “his” tweets are not done from his perspective and are instead from others’. These tweets are quotes from his coworkers and friends said during speeches that shed light on the type of person he is.
Frederick “Pat” Pettengill was born August 29, 1909, in Pembroke, New Hampshire, and grew up with an avid fascination with theatre. In 1923 when he attended grammar school, he played “December” in “A Pageant of the Seasons,” and further explored his interest in theatre throughout his life, even getting his Broadway “Dinner At Eight” playbill signed by all the lead actors and actresses. Long before that, however, Pettengill attended Bates College, graduating in the class of 1931. During his time at Bates, he notably did not appear to participate in any theatre, however, he did write for the Bates Student (the school newspaper), and ran in track and field. After graduating in 1931, he worked for a YMCA in Keene, New Hampshire, and was then hired by the Bordentown Military Academy to teach history and economics. He went on to earn his master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940.
Like most men of the time, Pettengill joined the military to fight in World War II, serving in the United States Air Force in the Pacific theater and later in the Korean War. He retired from military duty with the esteemed rank of lieutenant colonel, however, he was not done working yet. In 1946 he began working at Syracuse University as a veterans’ housing manager and later as the resident administrator for the university’s graduate centers.
While he had remained unmarried for the first 42 years of his life, a fairly rare occurrence for the time, on June 21, 1952, he married Ursula Prater, with whom he remained married until his death in 1986.
However, much occurred between the time of his marriage and his unfortunate passing, much of which truly shines a light on the man Pat Pettengill was. In a letter addressing an audience celebrating the 25th anniversary of a Syracuse graduate center, a friend of Pettengill stated, “Seriously, though, a lot of the success of the past 25 years, of course, was due to the untiring devotion of our dear friend Pat Pettengill. Pat with his soft and quiet voice and his unhurried manner was always there to soothe ruffled feathers and make sure our operation ran as smoothly and economically as possible” (“Dear Brad” 1978). During the same celebration, another speaker told a humorous and heartwarming story about Pettengill, telling the audience, “You know, a lot of people think President Carter invented the three-martini-lunch. That just isn’t true. Economy minded Pat invented the three-martini lunch. Only it didn’t start off as three martinis: it started off as three KOOL-ADES. Pat used to let us buy three KOOL-ADES from the kids at the roadside stand along Route 26 on our way down to Endicott” (“Dear Brad” 1978). In another speech, a good friend and coworker of Pettengill said, “Of course, as we all know, Pat is a real gourmet. He knows where all the best eating places are in the whole Southern Tier. For really special occasions he would take us to the McDonalds over in Binghamton” (Howard Card 1978). The unwavering tone of endearment with which these speakers regard Pettengilll emphasizes the kind and gentle nature of this humble man.
The most difficult aspect of this project was actually just finding a person to do the presentation on. I was not interested in doing someone like Muskie because I assumed others would already have chosen him, and I didn’t want to research someone fairly insignificant or who lacked accessible information. Pettengill ultimately felt like the appropriate choice given those criteria, especially since we take the class in the building named after him.
Finding information about Frederick Pettengill was even easier than I expected, despite being one of the most common names heard on campus. I began simply by walking through Pettengill Hall after class, looking for plaques, nameplates, or maybe a brochure that might tell me some kind of information about him. Unfortunately, there is very little information about Pettengill in Pettengill Hall, which is not super surprising. After failing to find anything there, I looked online and found several substantially sized sources that looked promising. Among them were yearly compilations of The Bates Student from the 1929-1930 and 1930-1931 school years, a yearbook for the graduating class of 1931, and the largest, The Ursula and Frederick Pettengill Papers. While the prior three sources provided small glimpses into Pettengill’s life at Bates, the latter was a massive compilation of lifetime accomplishments, awards, correspondences, and much more. The Pettengill Papers, however, required that I go to the Muskie Archives to view more than simply a summary of its contents.
The Pettengill Papers contained memorabilia from throughout his life, including playbills, graduation certificates from grammar school and high school, correspondences with colleagues and friends, letters from Bates (mostly thanking him for his generous donations), speech transcripts referring to him, and a massive one hundred page scrapbook made by his wife, Ursula. The Papers shed light on the many lives he affected through his dedication to serving others and put in perspective just how many awards one person can receive. Seriously. He got so many.
Nonetheless, after spending hours pouring over the Pettengill Papers, I was ready to begin thinking about potential haunting ideas. Initially, I looked into putting together a timeline or short video, however, the details of his life in terms of dates are very unclear, and a video is a substantial commitment. I ultimately decided to make a Twitter account to show more pictures of him and shed light on who he seemed to be.
I did struggle to put it all together, however, as I couldn’t find any information on what he liked to do other than ride horses
(it really seemed like the only thing that came up as a hobby), but I ended up going through the scrapbook one more time and found that he loved his dog, Dukey, and frequently had students over to his home to talk. After incorporating those things into the Twitter account, I decided it was ready.
The world has entered the age of Information, which, as it implies, is characterized by the incredible boom in information acquisition and sharing around the world. Most information is freely available on the internet. However, some companies collect private information and keep it secret for their own use. Companies collect data through phone microphones, Alexas, televisions, online purchase trends, and browser search history. In fact, after researching the history of Frederick Pettengill for this essay I was faced with widespread advertisements for Ancestry.com and other historical documentation centered sites. The technological era has also marked significant improvements in our abilities to communicate with one another. As such, word spreads very quickly, especially with social media. Oftentimes the ideas that spread through social media, especially as they relate to the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter, have resulted in the stigmatization of some groups on a larger scale, usually for the better, but sometimes for the worse. Such was the case with Pettengill Hall at Bates College, “named in honor of the late Frederick B. “Pat” Pettengill” (N.A. 2017). When I began doing research on Pat Pettengill, I had already convinced myself that he would likely be a racist, sexist man because he was born in the early 20th century. I reached this conclusion because that is what has become the standard of wealthy white men born in the early 1900s on the internet. These preconceptions were proved to be wrong, however, nonetheless I spent hours looking for negative attributes. As such, I argue that when reading information, the data should be interpreted at face value without the influence of preconceived ideas.
To explain my point, it is necessary to know some information about Pat Pettengill. He was born on August 29, 1909, in Pembroke, New Hampshire, and grew up an avid fan of theater. He later went to Bates College, participating in debate, writing for The Bates Student, and running track, until he graduated with the class of 1931. He went on to work “for the YMCA in Keene, New Hampshire and Red Bank, New Jersey, and taught history and economics at Bordentown Military Academy, where he also managed the athletics program” (Stefko, 2011). In 1952 he married Ursula Prater, with whom he remained until his death in 1987. Nonetheless, throughout his time at Syracuse, “Pat Pettengill remained dedicated to Bates, serving as the College Club president and recruiting students” (Stefko, 2011). In fact, he was known as “Mr. Bates” among many, and by the time of his death, he had donated more than 100,000 dollars to Bates College (Pettengill Papers, 1987).
As mentioned, I expected Pat to be a prejudiced man, and because of these expectations, I unjustifiably tried to find negative things about him. Not only that, when I failed to find what I was looking for, I assumed he simply chose to omit evidence of such from the papers given to Bates College. Pettengill being a wealthy white male living throughout the 20th century led me to presume that he held racist or sexist beliefs. To be blunt, I had no reason to believe he would be a bad person. Contrary to my preconceptions, there is substantial evidence indicating his beliefs fell on the polar opposite side of the spectrum. A letter written to him by Howard Card, one of his coworkers at Syracuse, indicated that
Pettengill helped pay for the tuition of a black student who could not afford to pay his dues.
In addition, part of a scrapbook made by Ursula mentioned that a Chinese exchange student would come to his home frequently simply to visit with Pat and Ursula. She wrote, “Pat was always looking out for the students… they were always welcome in his office or his home. Or should I say, ‘Looking for him!’” (Pettengill Papers, 1974). Further, both he and Ursula were given Paul Harris Fellows, a title given to those who donate and volunteer a significant amount with a multinational organization dedicated to unraveling racist beliefs. The Pettengills were an accepting, open, and loving couple through and through.
In order to explore the reasons why I had the preconceptions I did, the concept of “haunting” must be explained. Haunting is most often associated with ghosts in a terrifying or spooky sense as the words pertain to monsters, demons, or ghosts. However, in the introduction to Ghostly Matters, Avery Gordon explains her own interpretation of the term “haunting.” She touches on the necessity to comprehend modern forms of systematic racial, political, and social abuse and their impacts on people, and develops ways to write about the lingering damage caused by “historical alternatives” to modern systems of power. To accomplish this, Gordon analyses “haunting,” describing it as “a way in which abusive systems of power make themselves known and their impacts felt in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over and done with” (Gordon 2). Haunting, Gordon indicates, is the way in which we are alerted to the continued presence of societal abuses and tragedies we may have thought were long gone. It puts us face to face with “ghosts.” It renders the unseen, seen. Having read this excerpt several months ago, I think that my mind has been keyed to look for the negative implications of historical figures and systems, and how they present themselves in the modern day. As a result, I reached for anything negative I could latch onto.
The gravity of my development of preconceptions can be explained by analyzing Edina Harbinja’s “Post-mortem privacy 2.0: theory, law, and technology,” in which Harbinja unfurls the complexities of post-mortem privacy, explaining its relevance to human autonomy and testamentary freedom. Harbinja defines post-mortem privacy as “the right of a person to preserve and control what becomes of his or her reputation, dignity, integrity, secrets or memory after death” (Harbinja 2). Citing theorists such as Kant and Nissenbaum, Harbinja explains the relationship between privacy and a sense of autonomy. Autonomy is established to be generally agreed upon by western philosophers and theorists as a crucial piece to the puzzles that are social and ethical theories, and Harbinja explains that privacy defines the confines of this autonomy. Although many disagree with the concept of total privacy and autonomy, Harbinja wholeheartedly believes in their significance to society. Like with privacy and autonomy, Harbinja uses the works of theorists and philosophers on testamentary freedom to rationalize her argument that privacy should be respected post-mortem. For example, she quotes social theorist Raz, claiming that “an autonomous person is one who is ‘an author of their own life’” (Harbinja 5). In Harbinja’s work, life is likened to someone’s reputation, and this especially holds true in the Informational Age. By having unreasonable preconceptions about Pettengill even while research, I infringe upon his freedom because I chose to omit the reputation he earned and demonstrates through the papers given to the Muskie Archives.
To summarize, Frederick and Ursula Pettengill were a loving and caring couple that dedicated their lives to serving others and maintained a truly honorable reputation. The manner in which I developed preconceived ideas about them based on generalizing social media-borne tropes is unfair and infringes on their freedom and autonomy.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman takes the traditional coming-of-age of age story and flips it on its head. While the book is filled to the brim with characters symbolically “walking the line between life and death,” dead celebrities (ghouls) trying to eat living children, and a two-thousand-year-old Roman ghost, The Graveyard Book also appeals to themes and theories, namely, social connection theory. This theory refers to the experience of feeling close and connected to others and is dictated by the quality and number of meaningful relationships one has with family, friends, and acquaintances.
The story follows a young boy named Nobody, or Bod for short. Bod has no human parents because they were killed by a man named Jack when Bod was about a year old. As such he lives the first decade of his life being raised by Ms. Owens, a ghost from the graveyard, and Silas, a being that walks the line between life and death. Living as a quasi-ghost was difficult for Bod; He was not allowed to leave the graveyard for most of his childhood, resulting in him ever only making a single human friend — Scarlett. Despite having several ghostly beings that would gladly call him family, Bod’s lack of real human contact made him feel incredibly isolated. Unfortunately Silas, the man who acted as a strong fatherly figure for Bod, could not quench the feeling of isolation Bod experienced. Bod explains, “…he wanted to embrace his guardian (Silas)… but the action was unthinkable… There were people you could hug, and then there was Silas” (Gaiman 82). Nevertheless, Bod did have the Owens family to turn to if he needed someone, but they were only two people.
This dynamic
is where the concept of social connection theory comes into play. Many of Bod’s
tendencies can be linked to this because, according to this theory, “When we’re
cared for as children, we’re more likely to have healthy, secure attachments as
we get older” (Berkeley 2017). As said by BE, “Bod’s childhood was lacking
these connections, which is why he felt isolated and unappeased in the
graveyard.”
In his article, “Unremembering the Forgotten,” Tim Sherratt explores the importance of data, its accessibility, and by what means it persists. Sherratt targets the political nature of ruling over information, arguing that the prohibition of public access to data is a means by which to control a populous. He challenges the notion of memory “because [he] wants to unsettle what it means to remember,” and believes it necessary “to go beyond the listing of names and the cataloging on files to develop modes of access that are confusing, challenging, inspiring, uncomfortable, and sometimes creepy” (Sherratt). These statements are contextualized using the history of Australian Aboriginals, whose relevance, he argues, has been blotted out by mainstream events that garner more attention. One such instance is when the Australian government invested upwards of half-a-billion dollars to commemorate their participation in World War I but failed to address the intense systematic racism present in ‘White Australia.’ The Australian Government continued its lack of mentioning the relevance of white supremacy in their country all the way until the writing of Sherratt’s article, in which Sherratt data mines much of the hidden information. By preventing the data from being released, the government maintained power over the Aboriginals, essentially controlling their ability to “exist” in the public eye.
I strongly support Sherratt’s views on access. The fact that the only way he obtained the information on Australian Natives was by using was is essentially hacking indicates that system that is inherently broken. If we cannot obtain basic information about someone because a government is hiding it from us, perhaps exempting military personnel or high-ranking officials, then it is undeniable there is an untold agenda being fulfilled. I believe it to be necessary, in some instances, for data to be seized. Doing so WE states, is “powerfully subversive and threatening to the institutions and generally accepted narratives that we have today.” We should feel no shame lopping off the overreaching arms of governments and corporations as they rapidly gain more control over data, whether it be through hacking, protest, or, most importantly, voting.
For my haunting, I intend to collect information on Frederick Pettengill. I will need to collect data on his time at Bates, which includes delving into what he may have participated in, what sports he might have played, how he had a presence on campus etc. I will also do research on what he did later in life, and what allowed him to make such a significant contribution to Bates to have a building named after him. I will very likely be able to find some information on his time at Bates by going through the Bates newspaper archives either online or by visiting the Muskie Archives and may be able to find information on his successes after Bates through some simple google searches or by going through the library’s resources. As for his contributions to Bates, I assume I will be able to find that kind of information online or by speaking to some of the Muskie Archives staff for guidance. I currently am unsure how I am going to use this information to “haunt” campus, and in all honestly, I don’t know what “haunting” entails in the first place.
In the beginning of Numbered Lives, Wernimont summarizes the ways in which quantum media, media that “counts, quantifies, and enumerates,” has been transformative and reflective of Anglo-American culture, and how the quantification of human data is heavily influenced by race, gender, and the way one died (Wernimont 2). Among the most notable examples of this is the story of “Saint Savior,” the nickname given to a 17th-century woman who hanged herself in a church. According to Wernimont, she may have done so because of the high likelihood for her existence to be entirely forgotten. A notable death-via-suicide in a sacred place would guarantee her a death record. I find it interesting that despite this, her identity was almost entirely forgotten. Her real name was smudged from history, and her existence was tied solely to a newspaper column titled “hang’d and made away with themselves” (Wernimont 37), which was then included in more generalized documentation of the dead called “Mortality Bills.” Nevertheless, her identity is more concrete and detailed than most of the dead of her time because it includes both her gender and “the agent of her death (herself)” (Wernimont 37). While I initially found this to be reminiscent of some modern-day science fiction novels in that human lives are disregarded a nothing more than a number, it seems to be just as prevalent in modern-day insurance company practices. The oversimplification of data to identify trends that modern insurance companies do follows suit with what Wernimont states in the introduction, “Tracking and quantifying human life, whether motivated by corporate, state, community, or individual reasons, is intimately linked to the ways in which we record and enumerate human death” (Wernimont 2). If we take Wernimont’s words to heart, it is not hard to see that we may be heading back to an age of oversimplification. With the current rise data collection by insurance companies and horror stories like those surrounding Ancestry.com, it’s no wonder XN is concerned with the situation, stating “If our deaths are just seen as numbers, the impact we have on society can get lost in everyone else’s numbers” (XN).
“Jokes That Follow Mass-mediated Disasters In A Global Electronic Age” by Christie Davies and “The Death-Humor Paradox” by Peter Narvaéz provide a detailed explanation of the ways dark humor has manifested itself in modern society and touches on many of my own conflicting views on dark humor and how I have interacted with the genre throughout my life. Beginning as early as second or third grade, jokes about celebrity deaths were already circulating. I distinctly remember a day in the second grade in which my friend Matthew said a joke about him killing John F. Kennedy because he stole his lollipop. Weird kid. Nevertheless, those kinds of jokes were relatively tame. Davies explains that “sick humor” was scarce if not nonexistent before the influence of widespread media, and in my life, this could not be truer. By the time I was in middle school, the social media phenomenon known as Vine was in full swing, and with it came some of the first instances of dark humor going viral. One of the most notable ones was a video of a baby spinning a jack-in-the-box, however, when the “jack” finally emerged, it cut to a plane hitting the South Tower of the World Trade Center. I have yet to comprehend what made the clip funny, yet at the time, I laughed. Maybe it was because I was immature and “edgy”, or maybe it was the shock factor of seeing such a horrendous thing happen. Regardless, I struggle to understand how finding humor in national tragedy occurs. Even in middle school when I asked, “why is this so funny?” I usually responded, “I don’t know. It just is.” Narváez ultimately decides that despite the apparent nonsensicality of finding humor in death, “it appears to be a human universal, a technique for communicating and dealing with the enigma of our precarious mortality” (Narváez 11). While I would love for this to be the answer to my question, I struggle to find internal conflict pertaining to my mortality manifesting itself within me. Perhaps I have yet to contemplate how fragile my mortality truly is.
In her article, “Post-mortem privacy 2.0: theory, law,
and technology,” Edina Harbinja unfurls the complexities of post-mortem
privacy, explaining its relevance to human autonomy and testamentary freedom, and
commenting on the recent moves companies have made to respect privacy after
death. Harbinja defines post-mortem privacy as “the right of a person to preserve
and control what becomes of his or her reputation, dignity, integrity, secrets
or memory after death.”
Harbinja
cites theorists such as Kant and Nissenbaum to explain the relationship between
privacy and a sense of autonomy. Autonomy is established to be generally agreed
upon by western philosophers and theorists as a crucial piece to the puzzles that
are social and ethical theories, and Harbinja explains that privacy defines the
confines of this autonomy. Although many disagree with the concept of total
privacy and autonomy, Harbinja wholeheartedly believes in their significance to
society.
Like with privacy and
autonomy, Harbinja uses the works of theorists and philosophers on testamentary
freedom to rationalize her argument that privacy should be respected post-mortem.
Her views on post-mortem privacy are met by arguments that no real harm befalls the deceased and that legal life expires on death. Nonetheless, many users have professed their interest in knowing what happens to their online information upon their death, and despite legal life expiring on death, wills are an obvious example that exceptions have been made.
Finally, Harbinja explains how Google and Facebook are, in response to an act put forward by the US’s Committee on Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets, attempting to improve post-mortem privacy. Google created its “Inactive Account Manager,” and Facebook their “Legacy Contacts” feature, which allows users to designate where their data is transferred and who gains control of their account. Despite some legal drawbacks, Harbinja sees them as a welcome sight.
In their summary, GU states that protecting information after death is futile because once it has been uploaded to the internet it stays forever. While I agree that what is on the internet remains there forever, I do not believe protecting information is futile. Companies can create new features to limit the reemergence of unwanted content.
