American Environmental History midterm

American Environmental History

Used the llama to try and domesticate them.

Started to use them for hides, eat them, carry goods, etc.
When they only had a couple large animals, they wouldn’t eat them because of how helpful they are.
Barley, rye, and wheat are being grown in the Lord’s manor.
Grain was transportable and was the usual diet (meat was for the Nobels)

About half of all children died before 8 and the population wasn’t growing fast enough to create these big cities

Superstitious at planting grain, wanted to do it just like their ancestors.

Used signs from nature to try and replicate this.
Not a lot of experimentation.

Disease: Bubonic plague and black death

Hundreds of diseases went around, but none as deadly as those 2.
Blamed it at the time on rats, but now it is the fleas on the rats that came over on boats.
Sailors made it worse trying to escape the plague.
Lasted for around a century.
900 abandoned churches and villages were abandoned.
“Plague pits” to try and isolate the disease.
Malnourishment led to disease.
Agricultural advantages brought up yields, let fields rest for years, burned the soil and trees making the soil more fertile.

Subsistence agriculture

You eat everything you grow.

Would have a marketplace to sell food for new items, would support a growing artisan class.

Malleus Maleficarum (1486)

Strong beliefs in the supernatural due to the bible and Christianity
Illiteracy was very common, couldn’t read the bible and had to rely on the priest because they spoke Latin.
Woods were off limits to the peasants and developed ideas about what could be in the woods (Ogars, witches, etc.).
Every time something went wrong, they would make up a story or blame a god

9-1-23

Native Farmers & Hunters

Diversity- Eastern Woodlands

-Iroquois confederacy

-Cherokee tribe

Cherokee

3 Cherokee Diplomates (tried to have diplomacy with the British).
Amazing at learning English and had their own language.
They adopted American customs (like living in a log cabin).

Iroquois confederacy

Banded together and had 5 nations, they did not war among each other but warned among other tribes.
Iroquois lived in longhouses, 4-5 lived together and they were called a clan.

Hunter-gather (semi-nomadic)

- Their villages reached to 4,000 people

- Hunt down their resources every 5-4 years

- They needed everybody to work. The hunter-gather lifestyle reinforced the share of resources.

- Also, collective because the work was done collectively

Girdling/slash and burn.

They would gridle trees, which is when you remove the bark to expose the wood in the middle of the trees.
They would do this a year in advance to relocate their village, all the trees would be dead so they could plant crops when they moved back.
Slash and burn agriculture is when you cut down the trees then burn them. This would also help the soil fertility.
Slash and burn weren’t a big deal because the populations were so small that they wouldn’t make a dent in these forests.

“Three sisters”

Squash, beans, and corn are the crops they grew among the dead trees.
Farming method.
If they just planted corn, the soil would produce less corn each year, these three helped each other grow. Corn would deplete nitrogen in the soil and the beans would reintroduce nitrogen into the soil, benefiting each other.
This crop produced 2/3rds of the calories for the tribes.
Women were responsible for agriculture in these tribes.

Choctaw tribe

Employed the 3-sister farming method.
Would have the green harvest dance, played a game like lacrosse.
Grind corn into some flour to make bread.
Choctaw moved every 3-4 years.
Relied on deer and turkey for meat, they would hunt late fall and early winter. They also hunted some buffalo.
Matrilineal: fallowed the mothers lineage
Lived in clans and you would join the wife’s clan, the father didn’t have much to do with raising the children.
Women chose the chief, the man to represent the tribe, they could also impeach the chief.
Egalitarian: believe in the equality of all people
No material difference, they all shared. Individual freedom was important. The men would hunt for others, think for themselves but act for others. No laws, police, court systems, or jails. If they judged on behavior, they would decide together. The only punishment they had was banishment.

matrilineal

egalitarian

animism (Manitou)

Manitou: representative spirit for nature (ex: elk).
Religion
They believed there was spiritual power in objects and nature. They believed that extravagant nature could be a portal to the spiritual world.
They believed animals had spirits.

Wa’pa’piag/wampum

They didn’t have a cash economy, when you declare peace with another tribe you would give the tribe a wampum belt.
It was a labor-intensive process, that is why it was valuable.
They were made from clan shells.
Europeans thought this was a currency, this allowed them to trade with the natives.

9-6-23

Scientific revolution in Europe

Nicolaus Copernicus (heliocentric -> sun is the center of the earth) born in 1473-1543

Father was a wealthy merchant.
Research is based in astronomy, well educated, served in the government, and taught at a university.
Would “map the heavens.”
“Earth was the center of the universe” and Copernicus proved that statements false. This can have people question their faith. Is Christianity the true religion?
Did not post his findings until his death bed, worried about the response. Instead, it was a major shift in thinking. What if we don’t know everything there is to know?
This heliocentric theory was a catalyst into the scientific revolution.
During this revolution they started to compile laws of nature. Before this they thought it was all arbitrary.

Francis Bacon

Spent his time on ways of thinking for themselves.
Born Nobel, well educated, began to question Aristotle’s findings while he was writing them.
Member of parliament, three goals, serving the crown, serving the church, discovering the truth.
Wrote Novum Organum which was about the scientific method.

Enclosure movement

Closing off land so that everyone owns their own piece of land.
The lord divided up the fields; they would use trees and rivers to mark their boundaries, then they would break it up further with stones or bushes.
It took 200 years to enclose all of England.

Mechanization became popular due to profit, peasants were leaving, and peasants didn’t want to change the way they did agriculture.

Jethro Tull’s seen drill:

He traveled around and learned a lot about agricultural practices.
Wanted to get the most out of his soil, so he created this drill.
Filled a hopper up with seeds, it had a plow on the front that would carve out a trough, and the seeds would come out in increments based on the gear setting. It makes the seeds evenly placed and will maximize the yield.
They were producing twice as much grain by the end of the decade.
The population grew by leaps and bounds during this period because of these improved ways of agriculture.

Charles Townshend

He was a friend of King George I, and on a trip with him in Germany he discovered the planting of turnups.
He began to preach the gospel on turnups, he became “turnup Townshend.”
If they planted the turnups, they could replant some other fields faster. Tried to find the best formula.
Four field crop rotation: wheat, barley, turnips, and clover. Another way to fix nitrogen in the soil.

Thomas Coke

He experimented with selective breeding.
Born Nobel, had an estate called Holkham Hall with 3,000 acers.
Experimented with sheep’s wool, he wanted to get the most wool. Just like the other guys he wanted to maximize profit and yields.
He chose the ram with the longest wool; they would mate with the other sheep. When he did this people started to do this with cows and beef.
“Cokes clippings” people would bring their best flocks and see who can shear the most wool off their sheep.
Some of the practical purposes of this is that he can find the best sheep in all over England, avoid inbreeding and brings in genetic diversity.
The blue-ribbon winner would see their cattle and make a lot of money.

9-8-23

Sample topics:

Extractive industries

Conservations of early 20^th century

Environmental movement in late 20^th century

Pollution

Deindustrialization and nature

Environmental disasters

9-11-23

European Agriculture and expansion

Trans-Saharan trade

Camels made these trade routes possible.
Western products were making it to northern Africa.
Trading with Europe for metal, jewelry, and copper.
Also traded prisoners of war (different from slavery) would be used as domestic servants in the middle east.
Drew the Europeans and Spanish into international trade. Led the Spanish to the Canary Islands. Would be the first stops of the colonizers. Conquistadores 🡪 helped reconquer Spain.
When they conquered the islands, they realized they had to farm different products, and started to grow sugar. One of the first islands that started sugar plantations to trade.
The plantation was the first form of capitalism because it was grown for profit. These sugar plantations became the first form of slave trade. Sugar was only harvested by force.
2^nd big stop was Hispaniola in the Dominican Republic. Became the #1 sugar producing colony in the world.

Commodity Chains (Fernand Braudel) beginning of capitalism.

Made up of 3 different things: Core (consumers), nodes (gathering sport along the way), periphery (the places sending products or raw materials)
Like supply chains but a bit more complex.
When creating these chains, they were also creating a new trade chain between the 3 countries. Also creating those economic units (export, profit).
The people receiving the goods contain the most power. They have the buying and demand power.

Richard Hakluyt

English writer and embodies why someone would head across the Atlantic.
Made the argument why the English should colonize in the Americas. They wanted to beat other countries to it.
They should colonize for adventure, glory, and profit (new phiftoms to be established). Clergy 🡪 whole climate of unbaptized savages, merchants 🡪 new products to be sold, commoner 🡪 limitless opportunity.
One of the incorporators of the Virginia company was named for the virgin queen but charted by king James. Named the first town Jamestown.

Virginia company (joint stock)

Many investors
Chartered by the king but would profit the shareholders.
Explicitly a profit venture (capitalism)
To do that they need plantations in the new world.
Eventually became a tobacco plantation.
James Forte married Pokahantus
Built empires based on tobacco plantations.

Savannah city plan

Started after king George that began with the idea of no slavery in Georgia.
Charter by the king but was led by James Oglethorpe.
Land would be distributed to the poor of England.
Not prepared for the weather and insects in Georgia. Malaria plagued the colonists.
Then James suggested planting mulberry trees which helped them thrive.
Pine trees became profitable because of the lumber.
Fishing proved profitable and became a fishing colony.
Later they started the plantation system in Georgia.

Navigation Acts, mercantilism 🡪 an idea and policy, fixed amount of wealth in the world. Different from capitalism. Spain’s supply will be getting bigger, and the rest will be dominated. You want all the products to go back to England. Navigation acts 🡪 everything goes through England, nowhere else.

Adam Smith said the world’s wealth isn’t fixed and it can grow.

It was more important that wealth grow instead of controlling the colonies.
Tax less
Encourage private property.

Capitalism

Property 🡪 private property is the foundation. Requires court deeds. Individual rights, what does government exist for?
Capital 🡪 is a kind of property that generates wealth.
Market 🡪 free market. Unrestricted market, no government restrictions.
Profit 🡪 the price he can charge minus the cost.

9-13-23

What aspects are environmental history?

Epidemics, influence of religion, power, changes in population, bacteria. Natural resources. Bringing animals over and them eating all the acorns, animals and the natives relied on them. Over hunting their resources. Animals also carry diseases. The concept of land ownership, Massasoit was willing to sell land, they understand land management. Population growth of New England, there was not a lot of space. Puritans felt obligated to share their religion and take over. Medicine they shared did not work, even though they believed they thought their medicine didn’t work.

What moments mirror this course? Things that we’ve talked about.

Wampanoag brought 5 killed deer. They were bound by a need for allies.

Wampanoag 🡪 people of the first light found in Massachusetts.

Narragansett were the Wampanoags enemies.

They grew corn, beans, and squash.

Medicine men 🡪 pow wows. Everyone got sick, even the medicine men. Believed sickness was a spiritual invasion.

Massasoit saw his whole tribe die. Disease left behind European Sailors.

Wampanoag village name was Patuxent.

Europeans thought the native’s death was God protecting his chosen people.

The Wampanoag believed the Europeans were not a threat because they brought women and children.

Massasoit is the village chief and is a man of great respect. A person who leads by example and people have faith in his experience.

9-15-23

“wampum” was spiritual and sacred. All tribes respected it. It was made from shells. Steal drills helped wampum be readily exchanged.

Europeans felt obligated to spread Christianity. As people moved, they were spreading smallpox to Indians.

The animals that the English brought over were devastating. The animals were eating all the native people’s food like acorns.

English look at land for wealth and status. Native people feel connected to it.

The English look at the Pequot as a battle in their expansion. The English burned down their towns, over 700 people died.

9-18-23

The Yeomen Family Farmer.

Owned their own land, “yeoman” owned land but was not a nobleman or peasant.

Depended on family labor as opposed to hired labor.
Peasants don’t own land, might be indebted to someone.

“Competency” self-sufficiency

Yeoman out trying to create self-sufficiency for themselves.
They grow everything they eat.
80 – 400 acers for a family.

Town layout and land distribution

J. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur

- Wrote a series of articles under a fictional name. He wrote letters from an American farmer as the revolutionary war was still happening. America was and should be a country of independent or yeoman farmers.

Thomas Jefferson

He seconded Crevecoeur’s statement.
Every state should manufacture for themselves. Not as a choice but as a necessity.
Farmers own the means of production.
Independence vs. dependence
The yeomen were independent but dependent on family labor.

Feme covert

Once a woman married, she lost her identity.
If a woman brought property to the marriage, the husband would take the property.
All her labor and the child’s labor, the yeomen would profit from their labor.

Primogeniture/partible inheritance

The first-born son would get the whole farm (primogeniture). His brothers would become his dependents.
Changed to partible inheritance: all the sons would get a piece of a farm.
Led to population pressure.

Seasonal duties/gendered duties

Seasonal duties were following the rhythms of planting, weeding, harvesting.
Women would do their work around the house, small garden patch, poultry, sold butter, milk cows.
Men would be on the outer circle, out in the fields, plowing, beef cattle, hunting, going to town to vote or pay taxes.

Domestic manufacture

Typically, women that did this in the winter. Turning their wool into thread, then turn that into cloth to make clothing.

Sut Lovingood

A book about this character who was a tall, lanky, east Tennessee fool. 19 siblings, always falling through roofs, popular among urban readers. “hillbilly” stereotypes.
Farmers started to be looked at as undervalued and became behind the times.
Modern = city people

Southern Plantations

Headright

Virgina company crated this to attract people to Virginia, give 50 acres of land to everyone who could survive as an indentured servant. 5-7 years of labor.
High mortality rate, malaria, and dysentery. If you survived, you already had a few hundred acers.
Benefits early arrivals.
“Seat the land” to put up a structure and plant corn. That’s how early arrivals would establish large plantations.
Foundation of the first families, Berkely, bird, carder, Fairfax, Jefferson, lee, Maddison, Washington. A lot of founding fathers on this list. Aristocrats of Europe. Created a system of slavery.
Tobacco, cotton, rice sugar (crops of the south).

Monoculture

Planting the same thing over large parts of lands.
Pests would quickly spread this way. This is how the Irish potato famine happened.
Mirrors the 4 crop farms.

Chattel slavery

Chattel: enslaved person was property under the law. No legal identity.
Created by the first families of Virgina. Married it with concepts of race. So, enslaved people were native American or African.
By the civil war, enslaved people were the 2^nd largest financial investment.

Gang labor system vs. task system

Driver and overseer in the gang. Hold whips if they slow down.
The task system gave the people a quota and they could determine the pace of their work. Gave them flexibility in their schedule. Most common in the rice plantations. Native Americans had the knowledge and control over the process.

Soil exhaustion

Large amounts of monocropping would not use different crops to replenish the soil. They would try to use manure to replenish it, however that doesn’t work.
Often, they were only switching corn and tobacco.
“Europeanization” = tried to plow more often to increase the yield. Got to the point where manure was not helping.

John Taylor

His first inclination was to plant more corn, but that still takes nitrogen out.
Green Manure 🡪 vegetation which wasn’t enough.
Peas and clover were a part of the answer, had a beneficial effect. Puts nitrogen back into the soil.

Edmund Ruffin (marl)

A generation after John Taylor.
His plantation was in worse shape, couldn’t grow peas and clover.
Would test the acidity in the oil, if it was acidic, he needed to add limestone to neutralize it and adjust the PH level.
Didn’t have limestone but did have a shell bank. Pulverized the shells and that was his limestone, mixed it in his manure.
“Calcareous manure” “marling is to add the shells. Became known as the wizard of shell banks.
Vocal defender of slavery. Fired the first shot of the civil war on Fort Sumpter.

Cotton Belt

Cotton Gin.
2 million enslaved people working on cotton plantations.
The slave trade ended at the beginning of this boom, looked at African American women for breeding.
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas was affected by the cotton belt.
Monoculture leads us to the boll weevil.
Boll weevil started in Mexico, but as cotton spread so did this.

Boll Weevil

Article

Scope (found in the first 3 paragraphs)

Where?
When?
What?
Subtopics

Thesis statement- author’s argument

In the article intro.
Not a factual statement.
Not a description of the topic.
An assertion about the past.

Previous Studies- right after introduction

Is this a well-researched topic?
Is the author arguing against any past studies/authors?
Is the author agreeing with past studies/authors?
Is the author further exploring the details of something already researched?
What is the purpose of this study in the context of other studies?

Important supporting evidence.

Often this comes in the form of a series of events that demonstrate the author’s point.
Also take note of their sources. What kinds of sources did they use and how? Methodology.
Historians often try to blend the narrative of the event with their argument.
Sometimes historians ignore storytelling devices and just support their argument with one body of evidence after another.
Sometimes historians write an article about the way a mechanic would disassemble an engine-what are the main parts of the engine?

The Market Revolution 9-25-23

Moral economy

“If America was born in the country, so was capitalism.”
Farmers were a part of a capitalist economy.
“You have something I need; I have something you need.”
It was an expectation to exchange a product for a use of a tool. You were also expected to help your neighbor in times of need. This was most needed when there is an illness.
“reciprocity”
Would shuck corn and thresh wheat together.
“Barn raising”
Mutual support

Self-sufficiency plus

They grew everything they ate but wouldn’t necessarily eat everything they grew.
Focused on a surplus, farmers with excess corn could make corn liquor.

Cash crops

Wanted to clear off more acers exclusively to sell.
The cash crops in the north had to use this method to create an excess.
Most common cash crops are corn for liquor and wheat. They began to make hemp (for rope) or to feed their livestock.

Gristmills

Would take the wheat to the gristmills that all the excess wheat would go to.
Originally built them for themselves, but these later became larger for everyone to use.
Became a key node in this system because initially they would pay someone to grind the wheat, but now they aren’t just giving him flour for the mill work. Now, they are giving them extras. Would keep track of how much each farmer did and would give them boots or something more than flour.

Keelboats

Would ship the excess flour on a keelboat. It is just a flat deck and no tiller to steer, you do it with polls.
One way trip down river.
New Orleans was the prime destination. People in New Orleans started to ship them over to Europe.
A lot of problems, one way trip gets old. Rain amounts determine the rapids, they can tip over and lose flour.
Farms got carried away growing wheat, they forgot about their four-crop rotation. The supply also outspent the demand.

National Road

Started in Baltimore and built west. Baltimore 🡪 wheeling
The first major transportation project funded by the federal government.
Connecting the east and west coast.
The national road is the most recent road technique instead of the dirt path so it can be used all year.
When this was done, they didn’t use it for flour, but for livestock. Cattle lost weight on the road, as a result there were smaller sales and auctions. Grazed along the roads, farmers would start to cater to these moves.

Erie Canal

Another answer to the transportation problems with the wild river.
You can control it, connecting the Hudson River to buffalo one like Erie.
These boats are not much better than the Keelboats.

American System (Henry Clay)

The Erie Canal was a part of a larger plan that Henry Clay was cultivating.
Planning to connect eastern and western farmers.
Internal improvements (canals and roads)
A tariff on imported manufactured goods.
Wanted to use the tax money to build the transportation links.
National banks.
Southerners did not like this because they would pay taxes and not get imported goods.

Water rights in early America (9-27-23)

Dock Creek (miasma, nuisance laws)

Philadelphia was built around it. Known for their water distribution.
Waterways were used for fish, fresh water, and waste removal.
People complained about dock creek because it smelled.
Lagoons of different liquids, like animal urine that can remove bits they didn’t want on the leather. When the lagoon wasn’t effective, they would open a sluice that drained into dock creek.
Slaughterhouses, the parts people did not want to buy went into dock creek.
Breweries located on dock creek, waste would be leftover grains and hops. Putting used mash into the creek.
Residents described the smells as “unwholesome”. Believed the mud around dock creek was the source of a yellow fever incident.
Miasma theory of disease 🡪 if you had decomposing matter, the smells is what causes the disease. Also, if you worked in dark and damp places. “If you want to cut down on disease you need to cut down miasma.”
Started paving streets and hiring street cleaners, needed drainage and proper suage.
Private owners were able to move the slaughterhouses and breweries, however the businesses overruled the private owners.
Nuisance law 🡪 if somebody prevents a private property owner from using their rights, then they can take it to court. Individual property owners became able to sue in court.

Fish Act

Designed to protect a farmers’ right to fish in their stream. Kept it the same way it was when they bought the property.
People started to interfere with the salmon’s ability to breed.
A similar problem occurred with mills.
The mills were interfering with the farmer’s enjoyment of his property.
Mill owners became required to create shoots for the salmon to cross.
Believed the mills are more important and can create more profit.
Slater mill 🡪 textile mill, first mechanized industry in New England. What they thought at the time was considered an industry.
1800s, farmers were exhausting their solids, resulting in mills.

Alexander Hamilton

Born in the West Indies.
Continental army under George Washington. The treasury is how he’s remembered.
Report of Manufactures, a statement in favor of manufacturing.
Admitted agriculture was important, but the farmer will have to manufacture and farm. The separation of the occupations can be carried to perfection. If they are only doing one thing, they will get much better at that one thing.

“Boston Associates”

formed companies and own almost all the textile mills in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Owned the most famous mills in America, wanted to create a different textile system. Wanted to use young women and girls, wanted to create a wholesome environment. Would combine city design and community planning.

The “Lowell System”.

Employed 8,000 workers and 3 quarters of them were young women and girls.
Women lived in dorms and had required classes on hygiene and mandatory church services.
Learning how to become “proper young ladies”.

American Plan

Encourages domestic imports, raising tariffs, governments would use it help maintain streets.

Standardization

Wanted their buildings and workers to be the same. No drinking, 10 pm curfew, 6 days a week, 12 hrs. a day.
Tried to standardize nature, wanted to create order, and started to tap into the Merrimack River so it can run the mills.
Maximizing natural resources.
Wanted to make sure they have the same water supply all year.

PLC (Proprietors of Locks and Canals)

To help the water supply stay consistent.
Buying land up the rivers to control the water supply from the headwaters to Lowell.
Withholds water from other mills until those mills started paying them for waterpower.
Charged them based on how much power they are using, “millpowers”.
Commodification of nature.

Commodification

“Nature must be seen as capital.”
Wanted to create wealth along the Merrimack River.
How to make money off something?

Natives, Settlers, and Buffalo

Manifest Destiny

When Americans were traveling west because they believed it was their God given right.

Oregon Fever (“great American desert”)

Saw a dreamlike place for struggling farmers back East. Most of the people heading to Oregon are farmers.

Gold Rush (Sutter)

Another rush of people was heading to northern California to look for Gold. Newspapers tended to exaggerate, so families believed that everyone would be rich. It was not there for the taking.
You had to know how to survey the land and be persistent.
There was a famine in China at the time, thousands of people from out of the county cam for the gold rush.
A lot of violence was associated at the time.
Rivers were full of minors, if one person found gold then violence would erupt.
Gold mining became quickly industrialized.

Hydraulic Mining

When people would take fire hoses and blast away the mountainside. This would start a mudslide. The mud would go through a trough to sift out dirt, rocks, and get gold.
Changed the scale at which they were changing the landscape. The panning didn’t affect the landscape a whole lot.

Homestead Act of 1862

The congress started to encourage westward migration with this act.
Designed the people who wanted to go west a farm so they could get started.
Southern states did not want this to happen because they wanted the slave states to outnumber the free states.
160 acres if the family came out west and made a claim.
Assuming nobody else has a claim to the land.

John Deere (sodbusters)

Produced steel plows in 1837. His business took off as people went west. The old steel plows couldn’t bust through the sod, hence sodbusters.
“We are going to conquer the land.”
Did not appreciate the ecological history behind the land.
The plow turned the land over and disregarded the grass that was on it. Wanted to make the soil durable for wheat. This would lead to soil exhaustion.

Gen. Philip Sheridan

Was a part of the army that went south and became a part of the scorched earth policy.
Was then sent to the west to fight the “Indian war”. Wanted to take the war to the natives and used the same scorched earth policy.
Pitched the idea of attacking the buffalo to extension. No buffalo 🡪 no plains tribes.
He was not above a massacre but believed that hunters should be paid for every hide.

Comanche (agency, cultural systems)

Totally nomadic because they relied on the buffalo hurds, they would travel behind the hurds.
Next, became focused on horses, the Comanche traded with the Spanish. Incorporated Spanish horses into their culture.
“The horse culture.”
Believed there was an infinite number of buffalo coming from caves every year.
Showed up to Saint Louis emaciated looking for buffalo.
Preferred younger, fertile buffalo.

Carlisle Indian School

Capt. Richard Henry Pratt created this school system.
Wanted to teach practical skills to the natives. Viewed them as less fortunate. Recruited native children to attend the school.
The parents sent their kids to the school out of desperation.
They would be trained on how to be Anglo-Americans. Started with 70 prisoners.
Though distance would be helpful, that’s why they were brought to Pennsylvania. They wouldn’t be able to connect with their family and can’t escape because they don’t know the local geography.
Taught English, math, art, and poetry. Believed that they could have a proper education and become like white Americans.
They thought farming and industrial skills were important.
The school became a model and was franchised. This lasted about 40 years until 1919.
It ended because people did not want to give up their culture, they were a very vulnerable population and were susceptible to abuse.

Dawes Act

Tried to reform the people still living in the west through the Dawes Act. They will be forced into work, would not be able to hunt specific animals, would force them to interact with capitalism.
Wouldn’t be able to collectively own the land as a tribe. Forced them to break up the reservations.
Everyone over the age of 18 should have their own land. Also required Anglo inspired farming. Taught them how to not be hunter-gatherers. Forced capitalism.

Industrialization

St. Clair (anthracite fields, Reading)

Home to the first coal boom in the US. Anthracite was a kind of coal that burned.
Geologists realized this covered most parts of the state.
Scopula canal
Millcreek railroad connected St. Claire with Philly. Philly became the first market for coal.
Opened a Furness outside St. Claire. Wanted to smelt the iron right where the coal was. Was built out in the forest to fill with firewood.

Multiplier effect

One industry would often feed another, then as one industry grew, it would stimulate the other industry. The cheap coal is fueling the cheap iron which is spiking the railroad industry.

Pennsylvania Railroad (Thomson)

Edgar Thomson was the president of this railroad.
They didn’t lay new track; they bought other railroads and incorporated them together.
Had a young prodigy, Andrew Carnegie.

Andrew Carnegie (productivity, cost accounting)

Learned everything from Thomson.
Was a telegraph boy. Would write out morse code. Was bound to be a manager of the company. You always want to run the cars full and fast because you don’t want to waste fuel, get the most bank for your buck.
Productivity, fixed costs, maximizing your profit.
There was a back up on the rail roads, Carnegie told them to burn the trains. He did a cost and benefit analysis.
Coast Accounting needed to analyze its costs and profit. However, there were too many transactions going on. How much should we charge for a case of freight?

Iron puddles

Highly skilled workers took 7 years to learn how to do this. It limited the number of people who could do this, so they can charge as much as they want for this process.
Set limits on what they were going to do, 5 a day took between 10-15 hours.
Set their own hours, control over the process.
Carnegie is going to try and achieve maximum production when he enters this industry. Making sure production stays slow and unpredictable.
Devises new technologies to help the cars run fast in this industry.

Bessemer converter

Egg-shaped vessel about 70 feet high that would be filled with limestone, coke, and iron ore. Carnegie learned that the more you make at once, the cheaper the product will be.
Much more efficient, productive, and profitable, however thousands of people were injured and killed because of this method.

Vertical Integration

Carnegie also wanted to control the raw materials and started to buy up the coal mines, iron ore lands, and built his own railroad. He also bought a steamship line on the great lakes.
Owning all the processes of production is vertical integration.
He owned rail mills, American iron bridge company, armor plates, hoop mills, the list goes on. Bought mills that used his steel.

Centralization of production

Rather than having little mills everywhere, you could have multiple large mills helping the whole country.
New York became known for books, publishing, and clothes. Detroit became the hub for automobile production.

Nature’s Metropolis

Timber industry (bandsaw)

The rail roads opened the timber industry to the market. Land companies start to show up as well. They would low ball farmers land for the timber.
Land boom and spiking tax rates.
The band saw was thin, less waste with every cut. Maximizing profit even when cutting the boards.

Log jam vs. steam log loader

Log jams weren’t uncommon, one of the reasons why they stopped using the river. Had to use dynamite to break up the jams.
Steam log loader was a crane at the back of a railroad that loaded logs to the back of cars.
Led to clear cutting.

Pine (construction, pulp)

Houses started to be made from pine. Also used pine to make paper.

Chicago lumberyards

Started to come up with grades for wood, which started in Chicago. Lumber was prime lumber or grade A lumber. New ways to sell and price lumber.

Grain elevators

Innovation in Chicago. Got rid of the barrels, got specially designed railroad cars for grain.
Started to grade the flour.
Different grain elevator for each different kind of flour. Could also load it up on a steamship.

Chicago board of trade

Business of flour and grain. Buying and selling grain. Became a model for the New York stock exchange.
Traded in futures, so started to buy crops before they were grown. Farmers had to predict their yield.

Farmer Butchers

The men in a family would kill 1 or 2 hogs a year. Would hang them up in the barn and try and preserve it. Butcher shops weren’t too different.

Cattle drives

First way to get the cattle to Chicago. Cowboys emerged as a class to drive cattle.
Would travel in special freight cars, but it was dangerous, and people were getting hurt.

Back of the Yards and bubbly branch

9-11-23

The Conservationist Movement

Frederick Jackson Turner

At the Worlds Fair to take about the significance of the frontier in Chicago. Says the frontier is over and there is none left.
No unsettled territory left based off the census.
The process of conquering the frontier was individualistic, no government had to only rely on themselves to carve civilization. This led to Americans more love for freedom.
It was the perfect blend of bringing civilization, however, was still rugged. Between civilization and savagery.
Because of the end of the frontier, population will dense up, Americans will lose their individualism and love of freedom.
Mourning the loss of the frontier and Americans will end up being more like Europeans.

Wilderness

Europeans believed the wilderness was an evil place and was there to be conquered. Avoided it at all costs.
Where Satan tried to tempt Jesus. A place of witches, ogres, and fantastical beings.
However, this view will radically change within the Americans point of view. People began to romanticize the wilderness, started to become spiritual and God-like.

John Muir (Yosemite)

He was one of those guys who revered nature. He was avoiding the draft for the civil war, went on a 1000-mile journey. Headed out west, started to see the work of God, uncorrupted by men.
He grew up around clear cutting, could have been awestruck by nature when he finally saw it.
He discovered Yosemite Valley. This was in his view the work of God uncorrupted by man. Spent the summer there in a cabin he made. Hated the word “hike” because people should saunter in the mountains and not hike. Referred to the mountains as our holy land.
Dedicated his life to preserve this region. Wanted to prevent logging from ever happening in the western forests.
The government considered Yosemite as a state park but did not think this was enough.

Theodore Roosevelt (Newlands Reclamation Act)

Worked with John to make Yosemite a national park. Saw the government that could hold the industry in check.
Roosevelt is concerned about future generations. Conserve them for future generations. Muir wanted to preserve these places.
“Conquer nature” mindset.
Resources were put on earth for humans to use. Humans were at the center of everything.
Republican during his time, which were more democratic values. Believed in government involvement and reform.
Set a precedent which is to identify other parts of the country which should be included in federal oversight. Most presidents since Roosevelt have followed this.
“Conservation is a national duty” 🡪 why he’s the icon of conservatism.

Gifford Pinchot (U.S. Forest Service)

Head of the U.S. Forest Service. Will oversee the new land that will be overviewed by the government.
More profitable if there was some conservation.
“Working forests for working people” 🡪 employment is important. Would begin permitting timbering in the lands that are looked over by the government. “Logging done responsibly”.
Under the department of agriculture. Looked at trees as a crop.

Sierra Club

A preservationist organization, trying to preserve areas that they loved, one of which was the Hetch Hetchy Valley.

Hetch Hetchy Valley

Proposal to dam this river. Using nature in the service of people. Sierra club said no no. The Sierra club lost the battle and the dam was built.

National Park Service

Formed by Woodrow Wilson.
Became a side project, separate from the forest service. Would limit any logging and dams in national parks.