Located in Little Taylor, Mississippi, just outside Oxford, a developer named Campbell mccall is building a 64-acre community Plein Air, which will include 2 wooden houses. Every house is advertised as a traditional southern style. Most houses have wide front porches, and you can imagine sipping lemonade on them. They have all the modern facilities that buyers want, but if a customer wants a fence, about one third of the fence must be a 4-inch-high white wooden stake. Scratched by construction and painting, this fence cost about $2,5, which not only bought a practical fence, but also bought a complex part of the American dream.

Plein Air is a familiar suburban scene, which we have seen in countless movies, advertisements and TV programs for more than half a century. However, although the pickets remain unchanged, our attitude towards them has changed. In this beautiful life, frank capra staged the most optimistic scene in post-war hymns in front of the picket fence, and George Bailey courted Mary Hatch. Forty years later, david lynch opened his disturbing blue velvet of 1986, which contained a flat-bottomed sinister spike and overripe flowers. Halfway through the premiere of "The American" in 213, the camera switched to the front yard of spies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings who set out by the white picket. "White picket fence is an American shorthand," said John Mott, the production designer of the first two seasons of the show. "The meaning of' Americans' lies in living a fraudulent life. These people are not Americans, they are Russian agents, but they must be integrated into the American background.

before they crossed the Atlantic, picketing meant something completely different. In old Europe, piquet's picket, or "point stick or board" in French, was military equipment, and logs were polished to protect archers from cavalry. The colonists in the New World needed to demarcate their land and perhaps defend it. They used rough pickets and bare or white fences. In the 19th century, mass production made fence parts cheaper and more beautiful, and picket fences became popular from New England to key west.

, but not everyone likes fences. In 1841, Andrew Jackson Downing, a pioneer in landscape design, condemned them as "an abomination in fresh land, and no one with taste can be convicted." Downing lost this round; As the country expanded to the west, fencing also lost it. Scholar Fred E.H. Schroeder wrote in his book front yard America that at the end of the 19th century, the developers of new "suburbs" briefly made borderless front yards fashionable. However, the fenced courtyard can not be compared with the colonial revival design movement that appeared around 1876, which supported the picket fence. The humble totem of middle-class prosperity still exists in the 193s, when many American families were unable to paint the fence, let alone the whole house. In colonial times, the mixture of lime and water protected the stakes and gave the fence a traditional white color. (Getty Images) "KDSP" accused the Cold War of what it did on the picket fence. Whether seeking a sense of security, embracing new technology, or avoiding boring painting work, many suburban people in the 195 s linked their destiny. However, the symbolic significance of the white picket fence is inevitable, and it has entered popular culture as a visual shorthand for a better life. A kind and gentle America puts on a TV fantasy behind the picket, such as "Father knows best" and "Give it to the beaver"-an imaginary all-white world in which the worst thing may happen to Eddie haskell making fun of the beaver.

Real fences were once again very popular in 198s, and were revived by new urbanism developers in an attempt to recreate the appearance of early walkable suburbs. Jeff Hardwick, a suburban scholar, thinks that the modern picket fence is the echo of the echo, and the persistence of this expression makes him feel funny. He said: "Everything finally looks like a suburb that didn't exist 7 or 8 years ago. Nowadays, picket fences are sometimes authorized by homeowners' associations, which is an organization that makes a benign historical relic a reality contrary to its nature. "You can see through it; You can skip it if you want, "said McCool, the developer of the fence. "If you stand in the yard and someone stops on the sidewalk, you can have a chat." As for the "good old days" that people often talk about, please remember: whether you are talking about the 198s or the 199s, those days are no less than now. When the American middle class took the fence as a sign to occupy the crumbling land,

the white picket fence was so simple-a few slats were stuck on the horizontal railing, and one or two gates were enough to cause endless interpretation. But maybe we should retire the pickets and let them do what they do best: keep children and dogs where they belong and encourage neighborhood interaction. Enough deconstruction. Let the fence be a fence. It will broadcast

the story of turf that the United States is obsessed with. Anna Diamond and Matthew Brown (National Park Service) (US Patent and Trademark Office) (Library of Congress) (Scottish Company Limited Liability Company) (Alamy) (Alamy) (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) subscribe to Smithsonian magazine for only $12 now

This article is selected from the April issue of Smithsonian magazine.