railroads – American Disasters

February 5, 2014December 16, 2020

Natural Teleology: the Railroad and the “Natural” History of Chicago

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Our readings this week bridge a divide that I’ve seen in our previous readings: a disjunction between urban, economic, and environmental history. Rozario overlapped urban and economic history, Matthews environmental and social history, and Schneirov economic and social history. In Nature’s Metropolis, however, William Cronon does not merely suggest where these subjects might overlap, but fuses each together, suggesting that just as an isolation of the rural and the urban is an “illusion,” so too is any division of these historical subjects (18). In Chicago, Cronon asserts, we see the rise of a natural city and, consequently, a unique, interdisciplinary subject of historical inquiry.

As Eli humorously argued in his post last week, Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”—while it was certainly significant to the historiography of the American West—implausibly treated the frontier as an omnipotent actor in American history that not only offered the natural conditions suitable for westward expansion, but served as a driving force for American democratization. Much of Eli’s critique of Turner seems to be Turner’s heavily stereotyped characterization of the frontier. But, as I think Eli’s quotations allude to, Turner personifies the frontier as one who “masters the colonist” (quoted in post). Its stereotypes aside, such a notion of the frontier seems contrived. While I can accept treating the frontier as a natural actor in history, I have trouble with seeing a place as taking such an active role in events. If anything—as, I think, the articles by Kevin Rozario and James Connolly would suggest—places can reflect social and economic changes, rather than direct them. In this sense, I think we should should see nature—whether on the frontier or in the city—as a passive actor, being acted upon and responding accordingly.

A Turnerian himself—though certainly a disillusioned one—Cronon adopts much of Turner’s treatment of nature and place as actors in Nature’s Metropolis. Chicago’s expansion, he asserts in his prologue, was foreshadowed by “nature’s own prophecies” and “expressed natural power” though the product of human ingenuity (13). But as Cronon goes on challenge what is, in fact, natural and unnatural about the city, I think we can begin to see the clearest depictions of nature and place as historical actors much like we might consider persons to be. As Sarah previously highlighted, the natural landscape surrounding Chicago directly influenced its development. From its central location to its proximity to Lake Michigan, the area in Upper Illinois that would one day be Chicago drew the eye and inspired the rhetoric of early “boosters.” But as Cronon highlights, Chicagoans’ struggle to overcome its natural disadvantages also shape much of their story. For example, to compensate for its muddiness, Chicagoans literally raised the city in its early history. What’s interesting in Cronon’s treatment of nature, however, is that, in addition to environmental factors, he treats economic and technological impacts as natural—he calls them “Second Nature,” whereby humans adapt nature form new environments. Such “natural” actors include an ever-expanding, national railroad network and Chicago’s economic alliance with the industrialized Northeast. These “First Nature” and “Second Nature” forces drastically influenced the emergence of Chicago as “Nature’s Metropolis.” What I found most interesting, however, were instances where these seemingly disparate natural forces converged. Cronon highlights one particularly interesting example of this phenomenon: the railroad. Economically, the railroad cut back on Chicago’s seasonal economic cycles and strengthened the city’s trading alliances with other regions. Environmentally, the railroad transformed and blended into the natural landscape. But the railroad was also influenced by other natural forces. In Chicago, proximity to Lake Michigan and the Erie Canal influenced travel rates, while its central location attracted both the eastern and western ends of the railroad web. In this sense, the railroad did not exist in “First Nature” or “Second Nature” exclusively, but in both. As Cronon writes, the railroad “partook of the supernatural, drawing upon a mysterious creative energy” (72). This, I argue, suggests that Cronon treats “nature” much as Turner treats the frontier—an omnipotent force as much as a historical actor.

So, in reading Cronon, how should we understand his Turnerian bias?

I’ll leave this for discussion in class. But—as I argue above—I think that Cronon simply recapitulates Turner, substituting “nature” for the frontier and endorsing a natural teleology for the Chicago’s preeminent rise as does Turner for American democratization.

February 5, 2014December 16, 2020

Cronon’s Chicago

There are two approaches to understanding nature, and neither debates the inclusion of humans or cities in the definition of nature. There is the all-welcoming approach: nature is everything, and there is the nihilist approach: nature is nothing. Personally, I don’t believe the second approach because if nature is nothing, then nothing would be everything. An example of the interconnectedness between all elements on this earth, or nature, is sunsets which environmentalist William Cronon presents on page 73 of Nature’s Metropolis. “’Fancy the rail gone, and we have neither telegraph, nor schoolhouse, nor anything of all this but the sunset.’” But is a sunset any more or less natural depending on the “telegraph” or “schoolhouse”? I argue no. The sun slips over the earth’s edge leaving us, in our place on earth, behind. This phenomenon occurs everyday regardless of what tree grows or what electricity pumps through the wires. Does this sunset vary for the people of Los Angeles? The anthropogenic pollution may augment the light refraction, and make the sunset more beautiful, but it is impossible to separate these factors and produce the same result.

It is based off this concept that William Jackson Turner, in “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”, and later, William Cronon, categorize cities as part of nature. Chicago was able to develop because of ecological advantages that allowed humans to survive (glaciers in carved out lakes and deposited fertile fine-grained soil which supported grains and grasses which then attracted herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores). As Eli points out in “Chicago: the power of space”, the natural benefits boosters publicized did not seem to be so beneficial after all, as the city had to spend thousands of dollars dredging sand from the “natural harbor”. In this manner, nature can be both an attraction and a deterrent. Chicago is unique because it was about to thrive (not just develop) because of the transcontinental railroad. Contrary to Marston’s post, I believe Cronon attributes the rise of Chicago greatly to the transcontinental railroad (see Nature’s Metropolis: “Rails and Water”), while still acknowledging the environmental foundations that even allowed people to settle in this region. Without the railroad, the city would have had to continue to fight for its purpose, however there is a reason the railroad was established in Chicago and not in Minneapolis or Green Bay.

As a concluding point, when I think of the most “natural” place on Davidson College campus, I think of the Davidson College Ecological Preserve: 200 acres of “untouched” land. I think most students would agree. However, would most students be surprised to learn that these 200 acres are actually a second-growth forest, meaning that it is not the original land that was there 500 years before European explorers reached the new world? This ecological preserve also served as farmland, and potentially a golf course, before the school acquired it and allowed the native forest to re-emerge.

February 1, 2014December 16, 2020

Chicago: the power of space

A couple years ago, I heard about a UW-Madison professor who was under attack by local Republicans, after criticizing actions by Governor Scott Walker to strip unions of collective bargaining rights and insinuating connections between ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization with strong ties to the Koch brothers). The university was subject to a FOIA request on his emails as they might pertain to Republicans, and while UW did release some of his emails, they also withheld others, and argued that the FOIA request was essentially an attack on academic freedom. That professor, I recently learned, was Bill Cronon.

I share the above because it is a personal connection to Cronon, given that I was born and raised in Madison, and count it as my home. I think that one of the greatest struggles in life is self-understanding, and I have found that history is an incredibly effective avenue through which to pursue that understanding. From before early modern Europe to 20th century America and beyond, everything that we understand about our past informs us of our present. Perhaps that is why, as a midwesterner who lives three hours from Chicago and has spent days and weeks there and in its suburbs, I found Cronon’s work so interesting. While I realize that it is a long assignment, I encourage you to read it. It is revealing and fascinating in ways that pushed me to think differently about a wide variety of things.

Turner argued that in the frontier we saw civilization rebuild itself. Yet, what we truly saw was a civilization that already existed push its way into seemingly boundless space in a way that had never been done before. Cronon wrote of American imperial desires, and certainly these existed. Westward expansion was its own form of imperialism, and not many years after the Chicago fire the U.S. expanded overseas. Yet, part of the ethos of America, especially of the past, which I am beginning to understand is the desire for commercial hegemony. The empire that Americans envisioned was commercial, not political. This vision has largely been realized, and a plethora of examples come to mind: the Panama canal, banana republics, our dominance of the World Bank and the IMF, the massive amount of money which foreign citizens and governments our willing to lend us, New York as the center of the financial world, our power to affect drug policy in Latin America, the power of free trade agreements to make or break developing countries.

The history of Chicago is fascinating. Boosters argued that the city had the natural benefits which would enable it to succeed: it’s location on the Chicago river, which would serve as a natural harbor on the Great Lakes and its central location. Yet, these benefits did not seem to be so beneficial after all. The government was forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to allow ships passage on to the Chicago River, and the swamp-like characteristics of the surrounding area limited passage to the city for a significant part of the year. And yet, Chicago still managed to achieve significance with the building of a canal that connected it to the east. Then, railroads expanded, first with a line intended to stretch from Chicago to Galena, and then the Illinois Central railroad. Over time, the “geography of capital,” as Cronon brilliantly describes it, came to favor Chicago at least as much as its natural geography.

I am humbled by my inability to adequately communicate Cronon’s sublime understanding of Chicago, but I will try to contribute my own thoughts. It is amazing to me that Chicago succeeded at all, for every benefit seemed insignificant and every drawback, paramount. Yet, it did succeed. Perhaps the relentless boosterism should take credit, though it seems that other cities had as many proponents as Chicago. Rather than ask why Chicago succeeded, perhaps we might acknowledge that some midwestern city had to succeed in such a way. Chicago functioned as a gateway to the west, and while it did not have to be Chicago which succeeded, it had to be some city. As Cronon illustrated, Chicago came to exist both on the boundary of two literal watersheds, as on the boundary of two watersheds of capital. In the later parts of its development, its function as the terminal for so many rail lines made its success inevitable. Clearly, however, the competition offered by transportation on waterways to eastern markets made rail lines compete, which I imagine had some positive effect.

I also want to add that I thoroughly appreciated Cronon’s elucidation of railway economics, with high fixed costs, which is a cornerstone of microeconomic thinking and, I think, helps the reader to understand why the railways, though mighty concentrations of capital, were not immune to bankruptcy.

I think that Marston made a good point regarding Cronon and Turner: whether or not Cronon changed one’s mind on Turner, he certainly cast him and his work in a better light. Cronon forced me, though ready to heap criticism upon Turner, to reconsider his thesis in a different and more sympathetic light. Cronon’s work pushed me to examine the ways in which Turner had contributed to historiography and to American imaginings of the frontier and our history. Rather than endearing Turner to me, this makes me more wary. Consider, please, the way in which Turner has shaped historical views of the west and the frontier. Consider, again, the way in which Cronon is able to recast Turner’s work and defend it. These examples illumine the significant power that historiography and general academic exegesis have to shape our perceptions. Perhaps we should be even more careful and critical in our readings, so as not to be led astray.