Unlike previous readings throughout this semester, this week\u2019s portion of Cronon\u2019s Nature\u2019s 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\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n

I found Part II of Nature\u2019s Metropolis very effective in emphasizing the importance of natural resources in the development of Chicago. Cronon\u2019s thorough assessment of the emergence of incorporated grain, lumber, and meat into Chicago\u2019s \u2013 and eventually the country\u2019s \u2013 economy demonstrated how the power of \u201cfirst nature\u201d 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\u2019s 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\u2019s concept of \u201cfirst nature\u201d was responsible both for the creation and the destruction of different pieces of Chicago as a metropolis.<\/p>\n

Cronon also linked his concepts of \u201cfirst\u201d and \u201csecond\u201d 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 \u201curban product\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

While I found Part II holistically convincing, Part III of Nature\u2019s Metropolis saw Cronon\u2019s arguments beginning to unravel. I also think at this point Chelsea\u2019s commentary<\/a> on \u201chumans allow(ing) capital to rule their lives\u201d becomes clearly applicable. Even Cronon becomes obsessed with capital when he makes the claim in his chapter \u201cGateway City\u201d that second nature is capital (269). Though I understand Cronon\u2019s 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\u2019t make the distinction at the beginning of his book between \u201cnature\u201d and \u201ccapital\u201d as opposed to his created concepts of \u201cfirst\u201d and \u201csecond\u201d 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 \u201cGateway City\u201d 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\u2019s conclusions, or lack thereof, disappointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike previous readings throughout this semester, this week\u2019s portion of Cronon\u2019s Nature\u2019s 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\u2019s analysis. I … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Cronon’s Complications with Second Nature”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[140,150,178],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-railroad","tag-second-nature","tag-wheat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his458-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}