gadiehl – American Disasters

April 30, 2014December 16, 2020

A Treeless Windswept Continent of Grass and No Rivers

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

After the opening credits of Lorentz The Plow That Broke the Plains, the first words of narration describe a land of desolation with no natural water sources. An area fit for only the lone cattle rancher, at least until the “The Train brought Plowmen”. In Koppes review of the Worster text Dust Bowl, he highlights how Worster describes the wrestling of land away from the cattle ranchers as farmers began to populate the Great Plains. Both the Koppes review and the Lorentz documentary do a good job highlighting the transformation of the Great Plains from a windy grasslands to a desolate dust bowl.

Briefly before World War I, Lorentz described farming in the Great Plains as “Plowing at one’s own peril”, but his tone quickly heightens with enthusiasm as wheat and grain prices began to soar. “Wheat Will Win The War,” filled the headlines of American Newspapers and the incorporation of Tractors and other gas powered machinery only increased the rate of wheat production. As Molly described in her post, “The plowmen waged war on the lands, as enemies waged war on the allies,” it makes sense that the wheat boom took off in the fashion that it did. Lorentz does a good job in foreshadowing the farming conditions subject to the loose and dry soil of the plains. Periodically throughout the documentary Lorentz can be heard repeating, “High Winds and Sun, High Winds and Sun,” describing the unchanging conditions of the plains because no matter how little farming the land is subject too, there will always be high wind and blistering sun.

Koppes review of the Worster text highlights many of the highs and lows of Great Plains living in the early 20th Century. “The bison and Indians sometimes broke the grass cover, but it was quickly revegetated,” grass is the glue that holds the earth together in the dry and arid conditions of the Great Plains. As for the surge of farmers, Koppes highlights the Worster term “Sodbusters” because they did just that, breaking up the sod and unrooting acres upon acres of grass. Vegetation in the Great Plains can be subjected to subsistent farming, but can’t in an uncontrolled and unregulated farming culture driven by New Deal agricultural reform. As described by Koppes, Dust Bowl, is a passionate book written by a native of the Great Plains. Koppes does a good job providing us with an overview of the Worster text that helps us understand why wheat production became a major surplus in the American economy and how the Great Plains became 400,000,000 acres of dusty vacant land.

Overall the Lorentz documentary provides vivid video footage from the height of the Wheat Farming boom to the dust storms stirred up by the high winds common to the Great Plains. The Koppes text provides a good review for the Worster text, which can be used to understand why and how farmers overused the Great Plains. The Great Plains farming and tales of the Dust Bowl tie up the gilded age and are a prime example of why regulation/monitoring of particular ventures, in this case plain’s farming, are byproducts of Gilded Age disasters.

February 10, 2014December 16, 2020

$192,000,000 Worth of Damage to the City of Chicago and nobody prosecuted?

The O’Leary Barn will forever be enshrined in the history of Chicago as being the location from which emanated the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. Is it urban legend that the kerosene lantern used by Mrs. O’Leary for milking her dairy cow in the evening was the spark igniting a fire that would leave 100,000 people homeless and 300 people dead? Upon browsing www.thechicagofire.com interesting discourse is revealed about the people, actions, and confusion leading up to and after the fire. The information given to the reader on the website, in my opinion, attempts to prove the misalignment between the actual accounts from eye witnesses with the urban legend.

Unfortunately similar to the judicial system of the time I to find myself scratching my head, in a perplexed manner, at the details and evidence affiliated with the fire itself. Newspapers and other social mediums of the time exploited the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow because it made for good news and allowed those directly affected by the fire to find solace. The case against Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan seems to be a more fitting explanation for the cause of the fire. In the related texts addressing Daniel Sullivan, he admits to multiple accounts of trespassing and his association with Dennis Regan predisposes him to commit acts of debauchery. Sullivan admitted to visiting the O’Leary’s barn “In the evening over a hundred times in the past”, which Mrs. O’Leary had no knowledge of. The incrimination of Daniel Sullivan seemed even more practical to me after interpreting the diagram of the O’Leary’s home and their surrounding neighbors, http://www.thechicagofire.com/diagram.php. In Sullivan’s inquiry he described his location at the time of the fire to be resting against a fence, which from that fence his view of the O’Leary’s barn would’ve been entirely obstructed.

Even further primary source readings, which included Mrs. O’Leary’s testimony to the Board of Police and Fire Commissions, builds a case against Sullivan. In her testimony she recounts the night and provides evidence to support her claim of innocence. The O’Leary’s rented out the front rooms of their home and claimed their renters were throwing a party the night of the fire, which would have increased their inability to be awaken by early alarms of the incineration of their barn. Even Sullivan in his inquiry supports the O’Leary’s claim because he used the partygoers as a “false” alibi. In Mrs. O’Leary’s testimony she also describes the inefficiencies with the Chicago Fire Department because it was brought up that the fire engine reporting to the seen broke down in the midst of fighting the fire.

The http://www.thechicagofire.com does a good job providing its readers with a shallow, but effective collection of primary sources. The reader can leave with their own opinion and ruling on who started the Chicago Fire of 1871 and even debunk the myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow. With links to suggested readings, visitors can continue with more intensive research, if so desired. Overall, the website does its job of educating its readers with sources available and allows he or she to come to their own conclusion as to which actions instigated the Chicago Fire of 1871.

January 23, 2014December 16, 2020

State of Emergency: An uneasy, but intriguing call to disaster awareness

Disasters can both be sparked by mankind or the natural processes of our mother earth, however the cohesion between the two separate have lead to unimaginable interactions. I was moved by Mel Chin’s movie of animated illustrations, as it described two events in history sharing the same calendar date of September 11, however separated by 38 years, 1973-2011. Both of the instances are revered as disasters, 9-11-2011, being an attack on America by the terrorist group known as Al-Qaeda and the second, 9-11-1973, being the coup de’ taut backed by the US in which democratically elected government of Salvador Allende seated in Santiago, Chile was forcibly removed from power. It is interesting that two of the most noticeable relationships between the two are the calendar date of each and the rough estimate of life loss. I took away from this short animated film, history is inclined to repeat itself and the date 9-11 is remembered by both Chile and the USA for completely different reasons, however the United States is a player that had a hand in both events.

As I walked around the room another two pieces of art, produced by Kate Kretz, caught my attention. Kretz carefully illustrated two scenes of tornadoes on the end of a spoon tarnished by nothing touching down in the heartland of rural America. She used the most impressive technique of silver pointing on silverware that had tarnished, which is caused by natural exposure to air and moisture. In checking the credentials of Kate Kretz, we learn she is an American artist born in Grove City, PA and was raised in Binghamton, which is located in update New York. After little research in can be noted there have been tornadoes in Binghamton, NY within the last twenty years and the area has had historical accounts of tornadoes touching down dating even further back. Even more evidence to the fact Kretz was exposed to tornadoes growing up can be found in her own quotations at http://www.snyderman-works.com/artists/kate-kretz. In her short testimony as to why she constructs images of impeding catastrophic tornadoes, Kretz notes that, “Emotion is internal weather. Growing up in a highly dysfunctional family, tornadoes in my dreams have always felt like signals of impending doom, hovering on the horizon, a reminder to brace one’s self against the next disaster. Floods feel like overwhelming sorrow.” A point, unnoticed by me when examining these spoons, is Kretz placed these illustrations on common tools for ingestion because she hopes to convey the idea that situations and emotions associated with disasters must sometimes be swallowed because that is our role as human beings. In both of her pieces at the exhibit the overwhelming focal point is the tornado itself, making the surrounding setting seem minuscule. The path of a tornado is almost unpredictable, which means all that lays in its path will be altered by the natural destructive forces of a tornado. A point that should be noted is there were no works by Kretz in the exhibit depicting floods, but a number of her other pieces use flood waters as the focal point.

The State of Emergency exhibit brought together the human element and the recurring uneasiness brought on by disaster. In Chin’s animated film we saw how attacks against humanity by other humans can create different opinions when the role of aggressor and target are swapped in two different disasters. The works by Kate Kretz teach people the duties of humanity even though sometimes they may be hard to swallow.

Here is the url address to Mel Chin’s website for his movie…

http://www.911-911movie.com