Second Nature – American Environments to 1893

March 30, 2014

Cronon and “Natural” Chicago

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Parts II and III of Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis offer a further explanation of the concepts of first and second nature, which were introduced in Part I. During Part II, Cronon details how the wheat, lumber, and meat industries developed during Chicago’s rise as a gateway city. In Part III, the focus shifts from nature to the city and specifically to the distribution of capital. Cronon, in the midst of his discussion on capital, goes so far as to use it interchangeably with his term “second nature” (269). This was extremely surprising to me. After the lengths Cronon went to in Part I to clearly define first and second nature, I did not expect another interpretation of either term later in the book. Nevertheless, I do think that capital and Cronon’s definition for second nature are very similar and can be used interchangeably. Early on, Cronon defines second nature as “the artificial nature that people erect atop first nature” (xix). This broad definition would include the wheat, lumber, and meat industries, as well as houses and trains, grain elevators and steamboats. All of these, in one way or another, are capital.

Another claim that I had trouble accepting, and one that Wade struggled with as well, was Cronon’s statement that, “it would be a mistake to believe that Chicago had always offered these advantages, or that there was anything ‘natural’ about them” (295). It seems to me that the development of Chicago as a gateway city was at least partially the result of a couple natural advantages. One important element in Chicago’s rise–into what Cronon claims was the second most important American city behind New York–was its location along the Great Lakes. Chicago’s position along Lake Michigan offered an avenue for the faster transportation of goods to the eastern market. This was a completely natural advantage, and one that Chicago wisely exploited. Second, Chicago’s location in the middle of the continent naturally meant that it would serve as a gateway for westward expansion. So long as the spread of human civilization is considered natural, the location of Chicago should be characterized as a natural advantage. Its location on the western edge of civilization, at the time of its founding, meant that other cities were bound to develop further west of Chicago and in turn Chicago would serve as the passageway for goods moving from these western cities to the eastern markets.

An aspect of the book that I enjoyed, especially after reading Steinberg last week, was Cronon’s discussion of the pollution of Chicago’s waterways by the meatpacking industry. The similarities between 19^th century Chicago and 19^th century New England were striking. Clearly it was not just the textile industries of New England that viewed water as an asset. For industry, the waterways were something to be used and exploited, not maintained. Water was something comprehended in solely economic, not environmental, terms. As the role water plays in the distribution of disease had yet to be understood, there was not the slightest hesitation to dump waste into rivers. Rather, at the time it seemed like an excellent managerial decision.

March 30, 2014

Chicago’s Place on the Frontier, and Looking at First and Second Nature

Parts II and III of William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis expand upon Cronon’s telling of the story of Chicago from an environmental history perspective. In part II, Cronon tells the stories of the production, commodification, and transportation of grain, lumber, and meat and how they evolved along with the evolution of Chicago. In part III, Cronon looks at Chicago geographically, discussing the importance of the city’s location and how the expansion of industrialization westward affected the growing frontier. I found the organization of these two parts, and his book as a whole, effective. Cronon tries to tell the story of a city with his book, and the fact he was able to do so while not telling a chronological story is impressive, and in the end made the work more effective as a work of environmental history.

I found Cronon’s further discussion of the railroad impact in the west interesting and a valuable expansion of his discussion in part I. He discusses the railroad’s impact on Chicago and the surrounding areas in depth in part I, but in part II he writes that the railroads helped instigate the destruction of the bison, something we have already read about in this class. The railroads made going out and hunting the bison easier, and having a metropolis to bring the bison back and make money only motivated people further to hunt the bison and accelerate their destruction, and at the same time negatively impact Native American life. He also compares the pre and post railroad worlds in the west, showing how the railroad helped merchants in many ways and wasn’t overwhelming the frontier country but instead bringing them closer together.

Throughout his work, Cronon looks at nature as two types, first and second nature, with first nature being what would exist without any outside intrusion and second nature being the world build upon first nature. I didn’t love this definition after reading part I, and still don’t after reading parts II and III. In part II, Cronon does a good job of showing how nature and humans interacted through Chicago with the commodification of elements of nature, but in doing so he weakened the notions of first and second nature. For Cronon, first nature would be trees in a forest, and humans collecting the trees for lumber and using it commercially would be a result of second nature. While this is a clear example of humans “dominating” nature and theoretically fits into his classification of nature, as Ian mentioned below, humans worked in harmony with nature in the transportation of the lumber. By separating nature into two separate spheres, it ignores the concept of humans working in harmony with nature, even if in the example Ian presented humans shaped the environment. I also agree with Wade in my complaint about this definition, as using first and second nature works in some cases, but it leaves no room for something in between (or Cronon fails to do so) like when something natural becomes a commodity.

March 30, 2014

Cronon’s Complications with Second Nature

Unlike previous readings throughout this semester, this week’s portion of Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis left me with two very different reactions. While Parts II and III of the book were both filled with information pertinent to the growth of Chicago in the nineteenth century, the end of the monograph left me puzzled with Cronon’s analysis.

I found Part II of Nature’s Metropolis very effective in emphasizing the importance of natural resources in the development of Chicago. Cronon’s thorough assessment of the emergence of incorporated grain, lumber, and meat into Chicago’s – and eventually the country’s – economy demonstrated how the power of “first nature” was inescapable. In the production of crops, Cronon explains that the glaciers that once existed in the Great Lakes region were responsible for the richness of the soil surrounding Chicago (98). Additionally, Chicago’s lumber trade declined after forests north of the city were exhausted of their trees. Only these forests, due to the network of waterways that ran through them, were able to supply the rather treeless Chicago with lumber (200). These examples served to show that Cronon’s concept of “first nature” was responsible both for the creation and the destruction of different pieces of Chicago as a metropolis.

Cronon also linked his concepts of “first” and “second” nature in Part II. In his discussion of wheat as the definitive cash crop of Chicago, Cronon writes about the importance of the gridding of land and the grain elevator in commoditizing nature. As the railroad established its presence in the Midwest, the transport of grain increased dramatically in scale and necessitated the use of a grain elevator to make the process more efficient (126). The use of the grain elevator railroad also contributed to the creation of the Chicago Board of Trade in an effort to standardize grain qualities for consumers (119). Also bringing agriculture off the farm and into the city was meat production in plants on the South side of Chicago. The commoditizing of meat, Cronon argues served to convince Chicagoans that meat had become an “urban product” (256). While Cronon effectively reveals a relationship between first and second nature, he seems to fail to discuss the implications of this link. When a natural product like wheat became commoditized, did it too become second nature? Unfortunately, Cronon leaves us with inconclusive answers for inquiries like these.

While I found Part II holistically convincing, Part III of Nature’s Metropolis saw Cronon’s arguments beginning to unravel. I also think at this point Chelsea’s commentary on “humans allow(ing) capital to rule their lives” becomes clearly applicable. Even Cronon becomes obsessed with capital when he makes the claim in his chapter “Gateway City” that second nature is capital (269). Though I understand Cronon’s demonstration that second nature can be traced by the seemingly unceasing flow of capital as noted by Chelsea, I am left completely clueless as to why he didn’t make the distinction at the beginning of his book between “nature” and “capital” as opposed to his created concepts of “first” and “second” nature. Moreover, in our discussion several weeks ago on Part I of Cronon, we talked about how Cronon considered both the creation of railroads and cities a step in ecological evolution. However, in “Gateway City” Cronon asserts that there was nothing natural about the advantages Chicago had in becoming a metropolis (295). In Part III of this book, Cronon appears to become more concerned with the economic and cultural history of late nineteenth century Chicago than with the environmental approach taken in the first parts of his narrative. Sadly, with all these contradictions and conflicts in his arguments, I found Cronon’s conclusions, or lack thereof, disappointing.