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Cronon’s piece does, in my opinion, a remarkable job in salvaging Frederick Jackson Turner’s place in history as an influential historian. This is achieved through a historiographical study of the conditions in which Turner’s thesis emerged and also by studying the different approaches Turner took in writing his books and his essays which help to explain his essay’s somewhat questionable historic methodology as a product of the paper’s goal rather than of Turner’s historical abilities. More so, Cronon notes his ability to unite seemingly separate historical realities into a historical narrative that still endures today. This is not to say that Cronon salvaged the frontier thesis itself. Nor should he have, both AJ and Eli, despite their differing degrees of harshness, are correct in pointing out its flaws.
What interested me most about Cronon’s piece however didn’t necessarily relate to Turner’s work, but rather through a theory that he introduced to better understand Turner’s work. Cronon argues that Turner would have done better to understand the environmental history of North America (western history to Turner) through the lens of relative abundance to scarcity rather than from free to occupied land. He then goes on to more broadly say that “neither abundance nor scarcity has ever been absolute. Instead their definitiions shift always according natural and artificial constraints… and according to peoples beliefs about whether they are experiencing economic…stasis, progress, or decline.” (172) I would like to apply this this concept of understanding historical progress through population’s relative understanding of abundance and scarcity to Rozario’s economic evaluation of disasters.
As we discussed in class, Rozario’s piece can be seen to be potentially flawed because of his overreliance on examples of urban disasters in exceptionally prosperous environments. This criticism is well complemented by Cronon’s observation that people only have a relative understanding of abundance that is largely based on the perceived economic climate. Property in San Francisco and New York was extremely scarce and thus extremely economically valuable because of people’s perceived economic climate. Had New York been in the midst of a depression during the fire, this newly available property would have far less relatively scarce and less valuable. Similarly, a disaster to a relatively unimportant Midwestern town during an economic boon wouldn’t result in increased capital because comparable property is relatively abundant.