We stood beside Portland Headlight. My oldest sister and her family plus my youngest brother and his family were visiting my parents. As part of our Sunday excursion, we had hauled the entire menagerie out to Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth.
"There must be," I said, and we contemplated the thought for a few moments. Japan is 2,300 miles of coast. Surely lighthouses have played as important a role in that country as they have in Maine.
"France too," my niece said.
"Even California," I said.
This, we decided, merited research.
I have discovered that Japan has 3,212 working lighthouses. California has 39 lighthouses while Michigan, of all places, has 124 (for the Great Lakes). Maine has 68. Why, then, I pondered, did I consider lighthouses to be an exclusively New England product? I wasn't the only one. I have elicited similar reactions from friends.
"I'm doing a paper on Japanese lighthouses," say I.
"Japanese lighthouses?" they respond. "Does Japan have lighthouses?" followed by the instant self-effacement, "Well, of course, they do!"
Of course they do. But finding information on specific Japanese lighthouses became an exercise in exasperation. Lighthouses are not indexed in most Japan travel guides (produced by U.S. publishers), and most books about lighthouses refer to European and U.S. lighthouses, not East Asian ones.
Ah, thought I, this explains all: the lighthouse as a New England icon is a result of Western ethnocentric thinking. Problem solved.
However, I found a similar lack of information on lighthouses in New England and Maine travel guides. And I must admit that before I came to Maine, I had never heard of Portland Headlight. Lighthouse research appears to belong to the same esoteric and profoundly gripping subculture as stamp-collecting.
And yet, the lighthouse in New England is definitely an icon, if not as prevalent as one might imagine. The City of Portland is spotted with variously painted lighthouse-shaped statues. I collected three brochures on lighthouses from the Portland Public Market. Out of forty-eight postcards in the gift shop, seven were of lighthouses, and I found lighthouse graphics on tourist websites for Newport, Rhode Island; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and New Haven, Connecticut, not to mention Portland, Maine. Annie Shibata, who lived in Japan for fourteen years, wrote, "I know nothing about J. [sic] lighthouses, never saw one myself that I can recall—I associate Maine with lighthouses!"
In order to solve why the lighthouse is an icon of New England, I decided to compare two lighthouses—Portland Headlight in Portland, Maine and Old Sakai in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. I will examine the history of each lighthouse, its contemporary setting and its presentation to the visitor. From these contexts, I hope to illustrate first, how both lighthouses satisfy a general iconic image and second, how both lighthouses satisfy the symbolic needs of their regions. From this, I hope to establish why the lighthouse has become a New England icon.
Lighthouses have been in operation since the dawn of time or at least since the dawn of fishing. Setting aside the awesome Alexandria Lighthouse which reportedly could be seen thirty miles out to sea, the majority of ancient lighthouses were coal or wood-burning fires on top of piles of rock, later to be made into towers. In China, lighthouses took the form of pagodas. In Japan, stone-huts were built to hold wooden lanterns. The unending problem, naturally, was the source of light and the strength of the beam.
As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance and then, to the Age of Enlightenment, two developments propelled lighthouse technology forward. First, the invention of Fresnel lenses strengthened the beam. Secondly, strong centralized governments began to invest in the building and maintenance of lighthouses. The importance of this last factor cannot be overemphasized.
The current lighthouses in Japan (both used and unused) were built in the last half of the 19th century after the 1866 treaty between Japan and the Western World. They were built or designed by the top lighthouse engineers of the time, such as the Stevensons of Scotland and François Verny of France. They were modern inventions for a modern era. The designs were adopted by Japanese engineers and, all texts agree, rapidly improved upon.
It is their utilitarian and ultimately modern purpose that distinguishes Japanese lighthouses. "I have never thought of lighthouses as cute historical objects," Yuko Ishibe wrote in response to my query. She lives on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, the northernmost island. Yuko extolled the beauty of lighthouses but continued, "So if there is a lighthouse near I maybe go to see it. But it is not because of historical interest."
One might has well get excited about the Casco Bay Bridge (and people do). But the lighthouse has no more significance than that. You want old? In Japan? Lighthouses are recent newcomers to the landscape and uneventful ones.
Portland Headlight, on the other hand, is in the eyes of American citizenry, definitely historical. It was started in 1787 and finished in 1791. General Lafayette attended the dedication. It is often referred to as the first federal project of the new United States although John Marcus of Lighthouses of New England is correct to call it, "Both the last colonial light and first federal one."
Lighthouse building and maintenance was one of the first undertakings of the new U.S. government. The colonies, now States, were more than willing to hand over the financial responsibility of their lighthouses to someone else (with the exception of Rhode Island which agreed but with reservations). Bridging two eras, Portland Headlight gains significance both as a colonial project and as a symbol for a new nation.
A Japanese equivalent can be found not in the historical (i.e. 19th century) lighthouses but in a more recent venture, when the Japan Youth Federation attempted to lay claim to uninhabited islands between Japan and China. They built lighthouses (or said they were going to build lighthouses), inciting international tension. (The argument is ongoing.) Here, the lighthouse is less a marker of history than one of colonization, a territorial marker.
When it comes to history, I found only two Japanese lighthouses with advertised historical claims: Kannonsaki on the Miura Peninsula and Old Sakai in Sakai City. Old Sakai (see picture below) is the oldest Western-style wooden lighthouse in Japan. It stands at 11.3 meters. It is no longer in use, ending its protection of Sakai Port in 1968 due to land reclamation. It stands, a bright, white tower, on the edge of a pier. It is a historic landmark (as of 1972) and is referenced often and fondly in websites about Sakai City. The interior is not open to the public.
Old Sakai overlooks Sakai Port, once a major power in the business of international
trade. Sakai Port, like Sakai itself, has been subsumed by its surroundings, the large and bustling Osaka Metropolis. Sakai City is a city of 700,000 people. A population of 700,000 is not a large number for Japan, and Sakai City is eclipsed by Osaka City (2,600,000 strong). The entire Osaka Metropolis contains 7 million people. Sakai City, despite its relative insignificance (I had trouble finding it in tour guides) looks ahead. The Sakai City website commends Sakai's "modern industrial development, large population growth, expansion of its boundaries, infrastructure growth and more." The site goes on, "The rapid modernization continues to move forward with its robust development accelerating even today." This is perceived as a positive. In this context, Old Sakai lighthouse, built with contributions from Sakai citizens at the beginning of a new era, represents trade and advancement, a time when Sakai City was known as "the Venice of the East."
Portland Headlight has a very different setting. It stands at the head of Portland Harbor at the furthest end of a broad park and the park is visited as much if not more often than the lighthouse. People fly kites, go kayaking, hike, have picnics, play tag football and soccer and visit the crumbling Goddard Mansion.
The park, Fort Williams, is not part of any "city," at least not at first glance. It caters to the "natural" experience, rather than the technological one. It is "home to the oldest lighthouse in Maine." The emphasis is on the historic value and preservation of the lighthouse rather than on its modern purpose (although unlike Old Sakai, Portland Headlight is still functioning). Fort Williams is the historic theme park of the Greater Portland Area, and it is a very Maine-like theme park. Less rides, more rocks.
Consequently, the presentation of Portland Headlight is more visitor-friendly than at Old Sakai. Unlike Old Sakai, Portland Headlight has a gift shop and a museum. It has smooth walkways with a notable view of the sea. There is a painted rock telling you where a ship sank. Portland Headlight is a working lighthouse and various signs warn visitors away from the fog horns.
Portland Headlight's photogenic quality is stressed. Our family spent more time locating a place from which to take pictures than in viewing the lighthouse (though a number of us had been there before and knew the history). There have been many artistic accolades to Portland Headlight from Longfellow's poem to Hopper's painting to that of local artists whose art is featured on the Headlight website. The Headlight as art is so well-known, at least in Portland, that its intrinsic beauty is sometimes grumpily belittled. One sees without looking.
Despite all this attention and care, Portland Headlight, paradoxically, has an aura of isolation. It stands on the edge of the headland, cut off from the park by a fence (no gate) and a large hill. Photographs of Portland Headlight magnify this isolation, despite the fact that the park, on most days, is jammed with people. I have been to Portland Headlight in winter and still encountered visitors.
Like Portland Headlight, Old Sakai has been photographed as a lonely tower. Compare the photograph below to the prior photograph of Old Sakai. The photograph below, taken from a different angle, excises the ships and busy port. Old Sakai lighthouse becomes a forlorn object.
The effect is of a lone beacon, shining in all weather. This is the lure of the lighthouse. It is a lure that crosses culture. The Japan Coast Guard site unabashedly remarks, "There is something romantic and nostalgic feeling about such lighthouses."
The lighthouse is noble. "Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same," Longfellow eulogizes. "Year after year, through all the silent night/Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame/Shines on that inextinguishable light!" He compares the lighthouse to Prometheus, the Greek hero (or villain) who stole fire from the gods and was sentenced to be chained to a barren rock. Prometheus had only rare visitors.
The Sakai Hometown Homepage likewise refers to Old Sakai as "quietly standing," not words normally associated with busy ports, and the Japan Coast Guard calls lighthouses, "Navigational Aids Gentle to the Earth," a lovely, not to say remarkable, tribute to something that is, to all intents and purposes, a big flashlight.
But that is a landlubber's point of view. It is only in our modern age of automation, radio, radar and alternate transportation that the lighthouse has lost the overwhelming importance it had in prior centuries. As lighthouses lose importance or are replaced by other technologies, the image of the lighthouse (the painted tower) becomes a relic. We realize, only as its function passes, how important it was, how right our ancestors were to create such a thing. "Now, we understand," we say. "Now, we can appreciate your efforts to keep our seas safe."
As the recipients of this appreciation, Portland Headlight and Old Sakai share an iconic status. They are heroic symbols, a heroism that can be read and understood across cultural and geographic barriers.
For their specific regions, however, the two lighthouses hold different meaning. As icons, they author their landscapes in opposite ways.
Old Sakai has powerful symbolic value for Sakai City. The train line near the harbor is "adorned with street lights in the shape of the lighthouse." A statue of a European in 17th century dress overlooks the port. The lighthouse symbolizes the influence Sakai City once had (as an international port) and what it could still become. Thus, Old Sakai—not open to the public, non-adaptive to visitors, is a relic invested with modern significance. Its value lies less in what it is than it what it could (and once did) produce: trade, progress. It looks to the future—non-history.
The symbolic value of Portland Headlight lies squarely in itself. Its accessibility, its setting makes it an excursion, a place to take family or visitors. You can go to the museum. You can walk inside the lighthouse. The historic can be understood, adopted for personal use. This approach is intrinsically American. A recurring theme in texts on U.S. tourism and museum building is the concept of what Conforti calls the "noble and useable past." In the same way that 19th Century scene-seekers needed to experience the sublime in nature for themselves, the modern tourist negotiates and responds to the historic monument out of personal, and cultural, needs. To touch, to “get inside” is vital. Another lighthouse in the Greater Portland Area-—Spring Point in South Portland-—boasts that the visitor has "easy access to a close-up view of Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse . . . one of the very few caisson lighthouses which can be reached on foot" (my emphasis).
This, then, explains the importance of the lighthouse to New England. Unlike the Japanese lighthouse, the New England lighthouse provides a historical, rather than modern or utilitarian, meaning. A functioning part of the contemporary landscape, the New England lighthouse brings history close and makes it palpable. It does not symbolize something beyond itself. It carries its symbolic, iconic, nature within itself. As with the antiquarians of the 19th Century, who saved old houses simply because they were old, lighthouses matter to New England simply because they are (old) lighthouses, and especially because they can be experienced personally.
And perhaps in Japan, interest in the lighthouse as something old is beginning to occur. Yuko Ishibe (referenced above) who considers lighthouses unhistorical, continued, "She [my teenage daughter] said she didn't think [lighthouses were still in] use actually, and she felt something old [about them] . . . her feelings about lighthouse [sic] was different from mine and surprised me a little. I asked my colleagues. They said almost [the] same as what I thought about." With a new generation comes a change in perception.
Lighthouses, then, hold a remarkable place in the landscape. Just as their creation and construction is the result of various factors—historical, economic, technological—their positioning in the landscape takes on various meanings. They are modern miracles and passing relics. They are symbols of civic pride as well as symbols of isolated heroism. They overlook parks and harbors. They are versatile: invested with modern purpose and with historical relevance. Due to Portland Headlight, Fort Williams is more than a park, it is a historic area. Yet, even as it "authors" Fort Williams, Portland Headlight is self-contained, removed. Old Sakai gives its fairly mundane port a more historic and noble image at the same time that Old Sakai is isolated, inaccessible to visitors. This tension between the civic-minded landscape and the isolated monument is what gives lighthouses in Japan and in New England their romantic aura.
WORKS CITED
"Aids to Navigation in Japan." Lighthouse Association Home Page. September 27, 2004. www.mmjp.or.jp/tokokai/je_aids/e_aids2.htm
Conforti, Joseph. "Old New England: Nostalgia, Reaction and Reform in the Colonial Revival,1870-1910." Imagining New England. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,2001.
Hometown Homepage, Sakai, Osaki Prefecture. 2003-2004. September 27, 2004. www.infocreate.co.jp/hometown/sakai/midoko-e.html
Intercultural Exchange. Kansai International Public Relations. Office. 2002. Sept. 27, 2004. www.kansai.gr.jp/culture_e/ibunka/monuments/osaka/
Japan Coast Guard. September 27, 2004. www.kaiho.mlit.go.jp/e/index_e.htm
Jones, Ray. The Lighthouse Encyclopedia. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2004.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Lighthouse." The Lighthouses of Maine. Wally Welch.
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Marcus, John and Susan Cole Kelly. Lighthouses of New England. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 2001.
Osaka City. Osaka City Hall. Oct. 1, 2004. www.city.osaka.jp/english/
Portland Harbor Museum at Spring Point Pamphlet
Portland Headlight. Town of Cape Elizabeth. September 27, 2004. www.portlandheadlight.com/
Sakai City. Sakai City Government. 1997. September 27, 2004. www.city.sakai.osaka.jp/index_e.html
Shelton, Ann. "United States Lighthouses." October 22, 2004. www.angelfire.com/va3/keepthelightsshining
Shibata, Annie. "Re: hi." E-mail. 20 Oct. 2004.
Talbot, Frederick A. Lightships and Lighthouses. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1913.
Yuko Ishibe. "Re: Lighthouses." E-mail. 3 Oct. 2004.
"You say Senkaku, I say Diaoyu," Economist. 7 Sept. 1996: 4.
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