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Look here for a list from NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration)’s list of climate disasters that caused more than one billion dollars’ worth of damage.
The New York Times has a piece on an ongoing and dangerous drought in California, complete with some quite good visualizations of the extent of the danger: http://nyti.ms/1cBSC0F
In “Moving Beyond Stereotype of the Gilded Age,” Charles W. Calhoun takes issue with the lack of acknowledgement that the Gilded Age receives in the classroom, where he believes it is written off as a time of corruption and speculation, among other atrocities. Rather, he makes the case, it was a time of intense urbanization, industrialization, cultural broadening, and increases in regulation.
The “Introduction” to The Gilded Age and Progressive Era : A Student Companion offers a more conventional interpretation of the Gilded Age, though the factual differences between this and Calhoun’s interpretations are minimal.
Calhoun is not incorrect: the Gilded Age was not a cultural wasteland (though I admit, Twain is the only name I recognize from the list Calhoun unspools, not that I am particularly cultured), nor was it a time in which no attempts were made to address contemporary problems. The ICC and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act are good examples, though the latter was weak enough that it was strengthened in 1914.
The Gilded Age is not overlooked because nothing occurred, but rather because many teachers likely believe that there is more to learn from other periods. Indeed, the rampant capitalism of the Gilded Age seems most relevant in counterpoint to the regulatory expansion of the Progressive Era, since the level of government involvement currently exercised across American life more resembles the reformed than the laissez-faire. On the other side of the Gilded Age, Calhoun can hardly disagree that the Civil War was likely more significant than the Gilded Age.
Likewise, Calhoun takes issue with the ways in which the Gilded Age is perceived. I doubt historians and teachers would disagree with his characterization of the Age, and yet the views of the past are always shaped by the present. The Gilded Age surfaces in our collective memory because of the ways in which it was different from the present and recent past, not the ways in which it was similar. Modern American consumers may have gained tremendously in buying power during the Gilded Age, but they benefitted more during the 1950s; there was no dearth of exceptional artists during the Gilded Age, but since we have had Hemingway, Steinbeck, the Beats, the Harlem Renaissance, Elvis, and cinema, to name a few; Republicans and Democrats may have had substantial political differences during the Gilded Age, but so do they today, and frequently we do not see those difference play out in terms of policy. On the contrary, we do not have the monopolies, the child labor, as much urban squalor (though still significant amounts), and as brutal a form of capitalism as the Gilded Age held. Therefore, those are the elements for which the Gilded Age is remembered, though that suggests more about 2014 than 1884.
With regard to Thursday’s readings, I strongly agree with Price’s assertion that Bergman “jumps the gun” on calling disasters useful. They certainly reveal the problems in society, and allow for compelling debate on the issues of the day. Yet, nothing useful comes with so high a cost that, given the choice, one would never use it. To call it useful is to approach a disaster in a completely academic way, without humanity. And, maybe that is a useful exercise. All the better that we study the disasters of the Gilded Age, for I could explain a Katrina victim the ways in which his or her suffering was ‘useful.’
When I signed up for this class, I assumed disaster’s were limited to natural occurrences. Even while we were listing off disasters in class, I didn’t believe that terrorism, car accidents, or other man-made disasters would satisfy the disaster definition. I’ve always associated disasters with natural phenomenons and tragedies with man-made screw ups. Part of this association comes from the loss of life and capital that we were discussing in class. Human error rarely causes as much devastation as natural disasters. One of my favorite childhood memories stems from the show “Wrath of God” put on by the Weather Channel. The show recounted various storms of epic proportions. I’d watch it with my mom at nights (past my eight-thirty bedtime, so it was that much better), and we both were in awe of the sheer power some storms could produce. It was awesome. Point is, that show defined disaster for me. Sure, I thought the death of Princess Diana was a terrible thing, but I considered that a tragedy. 9/11 was a tragedy. School shootings are a tragedy. These are all tragedies because it’s tragic that human malcontent or error caused harm to other humans. Although Google’s dictionary (and there’s no arguing with Google), essentially defines the words tragedy and disaster as interchangeable, the specific connotations for me are a little different.
However, reading Bergman’s article, I found Matthew Mulcahy’s definition better than Google’s. He states, “disasters become disasters only when natural forces meet human ones.” (936) Bergman continues this way of thinking by claiming that disasters reveal weaknesses in social and environmental systems. He couldn’t be more right. Think about it. Why was Katrina so devastating? Because we built a city below sea level and our human levies broke, which allowed further flooding. Would Katrina be as devastating if the same storm hit a different area? Or better yet, would the storm even be a disaster if our buildings were all concrete and elevated off the ground (or made out of this arch’s material)
? Granted it’d be a hideous city with strictly concrete buildings, but the point is that the storm was made a disaster because of the human aspects combining with the power of nature. As Bergman claims on page 940, disaster is now an “artifact of culture.” For example, fires were more devastating before Benjamin Franklin created Fire Departments (where’s Benny Hartshorn for this one?!), but our culture adapted to control this disaster causing event. Fires are still an issue, especially out west, but we’re much better prepared to handle these wildfires. So the damage and cost of life wildfires cause is greatly reduced now than 300 years ago.
The name of this course first interested me because of its seemingly ambiguous connection to historical thought and traditional historical research. The definition of disaster, the category of disaster and the scholarly research of disaster were all foreign to me and until Bergman’s reading, very unclear in their applications. Bergman spikes my mind when he claims that the study of disaster was carried on by a variety of disciplines, including geography, anthropology, ecology, meteorology, psychology, sociology, and, more recently, history (935). It immediately took me to the beginning of class on Tuesday when we were all introducing ourselves and our interest in the course. Unlike more traditional history classes with possibly more distinct and popular topics and curriculums, this class garnered a much different response. These responses directly reflected Bergman’s overview of the history of this study and the intrigue behind the study of disaster.
These student responses garnered interests from historical perspectives, anthropological perspectives, environmental perspectives, and health and international relief views. The unclear nature of this study and its defined role as a certain discipline, lends itself to so much study and comparison. These differing interests in class represent all the different ways disaster can be interpreted and therefore, studied. Because disaster has no common creed currently, it is relatively up in the air and has the ability to lend its research to many different fields of study. My point is that this class opens up a whole new way of thinking about disaster. Because this field is so multi-dimensional, it can enhance so much research in so many different fields of inquiry. The potential for this field is massive and probably why is it getting so much attention as of late.
However, as a history major, I must explain the interest it stirs in the field of history. Beyond its role as a category of analysis is it’s even more important influence on the study of history, its use as a tool of historical study to enhance conventional historiographies and shine a fresh light on traditional topics (940). This field could have an enormous effect on new historical scholarship. This new angle of research will allow historians to go and view topics that have been somewhat exhausted and write about it from a new perspective. History is all about how you view it and perspective, this new category allows historians to delve into a very different and unique subsidiary viewpoint. It could even continue into a new sub-category is history which has yet to be named. Atlantic history or disaster history have been mentioned and, in my opinion, deserve some serious attention and seem like pretty cool inquires of new study.
What is a disaster? And more importantly, who or what is responsible for it? Jonathan Bergman explores various perspectives and themes concerning how scholars have addressed these questions in his article “Disaster: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” He notes how there has never been an established answer for either question. Before 1900, disaster was commonly accepted as divine retribution, with a vengeful God casting his judgment on a select community or area. More recently, however, scholars have contended that human agency is present in every “natural” disaster. Matthew Mulcahy aptly reflects this view, noting “disasters become disasters only when natural forces meet human ones.” (936) Regardless of these definitions, Bergman argues that disasters can serve as tools of revealing societal trends and civil conflicts.
While Bergman may jump the gun a bit in describing disasters as “useful,” his analysis makes interesting points on how natural and man-made disasters often fit into political debates. Conflicts triggered by American disasters, especially in the twentieth century, bear a remarkable resemblance to ones seen today. The Dust Bowl contributed to ideological divide between the traditional view of “rugged individualism” and rising New Deal progressivism. The influx of the Spanish Flu in the early 1900s led to controversy concerning immigration and social homogeneity- concerns that have yet to subside. Bergman notes an evident parallelism between Mississippi Delta flooding in the 1920s and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the 2000s. Both ignited fiery debates concerning race, wealth, and governmental disaster relief. Overall, Bergman indicates that the “usefulness” of natural disasters lies in how they reveal social, economic, and political patterns that have adapted little over the course of time and are still prevalent today.
In this week’s readings, both Bergman and Hewitt ponder the characteristics of disasters: how are they defined? What are their prominent elements? What are their implications? How do they fall within the delineations of academic inquiry?
I found Hewitt’s analysis succinct and focused, and therefore more useful. Perhaps most usefully, Hewitt distinguishes between the routine–highway, smoking, lifestyle related deaths–and the more unexpected ‘extreme events’ (Hewitt 5). These fall into the major categories of natural, technological, and war-related disasters. He also suggests some important characteristics of disasters such as their concentrated death and injury; their wont to catch individuals or societies unaware, and perhaps represent a new, previously unknown, threat; and their natural tendency to overwhelm previously functional societal and governmental systems.
Bergman’s work, more so than Hewitt’s, is a historiographical analysis. Analyzing, or at least mentioning, a wide variety of historiography on disasters, Bergman asserts clearly that disasters are necessarily social and human. Furthermore, he argues that those analyses which separate the human from the exogenous cause of the disaster are incomplete. Indeed, I believe this to be true: in their history of the disasters and upheaval in reformation Europe, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe, Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell argue the illogic of trying to find every early modern disease’s contemporary counterpart. Convincingly, they write that the disease is no more the bacterium or virus that causes it than it is the experience of the disease itself. For example, syphilis in 2014–many years after penicillin–bears little resemblance, in terms of experience, to syphilis in 1500. Likewise with disasters: the greatest earthquake or flood is no disaster without the human experience, regardless of its other effects.
Compellingly, one might argue that this definition is more inclusive than it might seem at first. Human compassion may include many disasters which cost no human lives, directly or otherwise: the Exxon-Valdez spill comes to mind.
Eventually, it seems the definition of a disaster will lack some specificity, such that it may include the wide variety of events which the humans who experience them deem disasters. I believe that to be acceptable: historians (and geographers) can continue their study of those events that they, or others, deemed disasters in their own experience.
Welcome to the history of American Disasters of the Gilded Age, taught at Davidson College in the Spring of 2014. This space will function in lieu of a Moddle forum – as a place for you to register weekly opinions on the reading, drop in interesting links. The blog is not indexed with Google, but it is still accessible to any who might stumble upon it. To that end, if you don’t want your posts to be searchable by your Davidson handle, feel free to change it (users>your profile>nickname) and send me the name you’ll be posting under.