Author: sevallos

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The Dust Bowl provides a wide range of interpretation, especially when answering the questions concerning the causes of the Dust Bowl. As Gravity21 explains, historians such as “Worster believe[d] the Dust Bowl was the creation of man and their belief in capitalism.” Worster supports this by arguing the farmers’ land was not naturally intended to grow wheat, but the desire for this high-value crop made the farmers force the crop into the soil. Worster’s belief that the Dust Bowl was man-made conflicts with another historian, Bonnifield, whom argued that the region’s soil was already subject to dust storms. Cunfer takes a quantitative approach to the disaster, using digital history to research the regions affected by the Dust Bowl. He comes to a similar conclusion as Bonnifield, in the sense that he disagrees with Worster’s thesis. Cunfer concludes that the Dust Bowl was of nature, not man-made, likely caused by a series of droughts within the area. As the previous Blevins piece stated, quantitative history is often not academic enough to make scholarly claims. While Cunfer’s research supports the claim that the Dust Bowl was not man-made, it does not fully prove it with evidence in the same way that Worster’s research does.

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Wendy Kozol offers an interesting perspective on the Great Depression regarding gender. Kozol references critiques of the Great Depression, including the noteworthy critique that the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl led to the destruction of traditional agrarian ideals. As a side effect of this destruction, photographers during the Great Depression sought to preserve traditional values by photographing victims of the Depression. The most popular victims photographed were of women and children, specifically mothers and their children.

Many examples, such as the RA/FSA photographs captured victims of the Great Depression in ways that would separate the audience from the subject in the photo. As REBEKAHBENNINGER1 states, the intent of the photographs vary on the values that the photographers have. In many of the RA/FSA photographs, women are depicted as helpless victims alongside children in order to create an emotional appeal to Depression relief. The children accentuate this helpless appeal by suggesting that the children are dependent on the well-being of the helpless mother. Oftentimes too, the mothers and children are shown in poor, tattered clothing and rags that show a level of poverty that the audience may not be experiencing. The victimization of mothers is one way that the Great Depression promoted traditional family roles.

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The Communist Manifesto, written during the height of the Industrial Revolution, defines the class struggles caused by Industrialization and Capitalism between workers and owners. Boyer contextualizes the work of Karl Marx by describing the social and economic conditions leading up to Marx’s publication. Boyer also notes that the last few sections of the Communist Manifesto are ideological, pertaining to a specific political philosophy rather than a strict economic philosophy. Marx implores the proletariat of the world to follow the Communist ideology, which as Zhedrick states, “implores them to initiate a bloody revolution in the name of equality.” Boyer finds the distinction between Marx’s economic and political messages significant enough to distinguish them. In this regard, I feel the distinction is important because economics and policy are not separate. They directly influence each other: economics is often decided by government policy. This is why Marx’s rallying message at the end, “Working Men of All Countries, Unite!” closes his statement. He calls for revolution, a violent political resistance against the higher class. To seize the means of production and redistribute them to the working class is a political revolution, not just an economic ideology.

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Just yesterday in class, we did an exercise on theory, relating several historical theories to Isaac’s Storm. After rereading the blog posts we contributed over the first half of the semester, I noticed how prevalent theory was in our posts. Just about all the posts discuss around one or two historical theories. For example, peterrossi1 focuses on urban history by evaluating Cronon’s thesis, “Why do cities form where they do?” In the same blog post, peterrossi1 also explains the trends of urbanization, following up with his discussion of urban history. In these blog posts, we referenced each other’s work, often using it as an introductory sentence or to strengthen their own ideas. Zhoeffken references peterrossi1‘s focus on urban history and geography when discussing the urban planning for Chicago. Zhoeffken presented the idea of Chicago’s geography being both its boon and bane. Later, Sevallos would reference the “boon and bane” idea when discussing Cronan’s major point, “Second Nature.” I feel that this type of idea-building between blog posts, between historians, has strengthened our understanding of theory. We are free to take one idea from another historian and apply it to our own thoughts.

When the class reached Isaac’s Storm, students commonly referenced other students’ work on the Johnstown Flood, most likely because of the Galveston Hurricane and the Johnstown Flood having similarities in water-based catastrophe. McKenndy21 referenced Cluna3‘s dicussion on the Johnstown Flood in order to relate Johnstown’s lack of proper dam and water protections to Galveston’s lack of sea wall. Rebekahbenninger1 references Johnkane in the same way, also discussing the lack of water protection in both Johnstown and Galveston. There are a couple other blog posts that referenced Johnstown, so I feel that the Johnstown article was a strong transition into Isaac’s Storm since it presented the causes and effects of flooding to students.

To conclude, the blog is similar to the in-class discussions that we take part in. The key difference though is time. Not every student gets to speak in-class and present their ideas because of the limited time, so in the blog setting, we are given a large amount of time to form our ideas and to discuss them with others. It’s common for students to not share their ideas if they feel someone else has explained it better, but in the blog, I have seen students use other students’ strong ideas in order to support a strong analysis. As such, the blog feels more centered on the collective whole while the classroom feels more centered on the individual. Knowledge that we share on the blog may directly benefit others in their process of learning.

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As cluna3 suggests, both common and wealthy individuals alike wanted Galveston to be salvaged from the disastrous hurricane that effectively destroyed the island, similar to how the boosters of Chicago were quick to rebuild in order to protect their investments. Bixel offers two examples of how Galveston citizens reacted to possible reform. Before the hurricane, in the 1870’s, citizens were unwilling to pay for the construction of barricades, dikes, or any other coastal protection from the ocean despite numerous storms that damaged property. Even in 1886, the citizens fiercely resisted such construction after another large storm. After the storm, however, opposition seemed to fade, as the new Deep Water Committee(DWC) quickly set out to construct a large sea wall and to raise the ground level of the city. These projects met little opposition, and the citizens were even willing to relinquish the right to elect the city leaders.

Bixel highlights the cause and effect scenario that nature and humans tend to take part in. Like in many other disasters, humans often have poor city planning or poor policy in the wake of disaster, resulting in devastation in both population and economics. Galveston is another prime example of this, as Bixel presents the quick willingness to rebuild Galveston. Examples such as Galveston represent a pattern in which humans are stubborn. They are slow to fortify their cities but quick to rebuild them, and the DWC’s efficient management of Galveston is one of many examples from the turn of the 19th Century. The Gilded Age offered many disasters that directly fueled the birth of the Progressive Movement, leading to infrastructure reform on a national scale.

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In Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane is explored through the perspective of Isaac Cline and those around him affected by the disaster. Isaac serves as the focal point of the novel, allowing readers to experience the events leading up to the disaster through his viewpoint and understanding on hurricanes. As a meteorologist, Isaac studied past hurricanes that had been documented, including the three-part back-to-back hurricanes that ravaged the British naval forces in 1780. In this particular instance, Isaac comments that “clearly hurricanes posed a greater menace than any single nation’s forces” (Larson, 52). Isaac, having studied the destruction and the death tolls brought by hurricanes, clearly understands the potential threat of such storms. In Zhedrick’s post on Faith and Doubt, it is stated that religion is used at the “primary reason for the fire.” This coincides with a description of hurricanes that Larson gives, that hurricanes are “another hazard of venturing upon the sea – acts of God, still, and against which one could do nothing” (Larson, 52). Isaac sets out to predict the activities of hurricanes, to predict these “acts of God.” The dramatic irony comes from the reader knowing that the Galveston Hurricane will occur and that Isaac’s predictions of it not occurring are wrong. Despite his knowledge of a hurricane’s destructive power, he wrongly predicts that even if it strikes, the damage will be minimal.

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Having recently visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library again, I overheard many of the guests commenting on the exhibits in the museum. I heard various comments, such as “I read about this in class,” and “I never knew that Elvis Presley met Richard Nixon.” These types of comments are common since many students come to the museum. During many of my visits, I overheard one particular comment that has always fascinated me: “I remember that.” This comment comes from the elderly, people who are old enough to have lived during the Nixon Administration, either as a child or a young adult. The elderly guests sometimes stare at the pictures of Nixon meeting Zhou Enlai or the pictures of the POW’s coming back from Vietnam. “I remember that,” they’ll say. Or when they watch President Nixon leave the White House in his helicopter, they sometimes get emotional because they remember the very same broadcast from forty years ago.

I feel that as historians, or people in general, we have  a tendency to view history as something far away from us, existing only in the past. Many of us learn about the 1960’s and early 70’s through textbooks, neglecting the fact that there are people among us who lived through these eras, even as young adults.  The elderly are living history, proof of a generation long before us. They remember the past personally in a way that we cannot. If you want to learn more about the recent past, I recommend that in addition to scholarly research, you should also speak to someone who has experienced it. This type of personal history will not always be available. Talk to an old person today.

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In chapter 2, Cronon discusses the key advantages and disadvantages of the waterways and geography surrounding Chicago in its early stages. Zhoeffken acknowledges that Chicago’s geography served as its boon and bane, and Cronon emphasized this through his examples of Chicago’s “Second Nature.” Second Nature refers to the state of nature formed after human intervention; whereas natural geography is “First Nature,” man-made geography or altered geography is Second Nature.

Within the context of Second Nature, Cronon emphasizes that Chicago’s geographic advantages as a city needed much improvement upon the land in order to be utilized. The river and lake system surrounding Chicago was not deep enough to sustain a harbor for large vessels. In 1835, engineers attempted to facilitate this problem by digging the waterways deeper, but each attempt was thwarted eventually by the build-up of sand in the water. The sand would have to be actively removed, becoming very costly to maintain the harbor. By the 1840s, the local government had already spent a quarter of a million dollars just on maintaining the harbor. The waterways should have been considered a geographical advantage, but were largely a financial burden.

Chicago’s key geographical advantage was location. Cronon emphasizes that Chicago connected the East to the West, even before the inclusion of the railroad. Farmers from the West would visit Chicago to purchase goods from the East since Chicago’s prices on these goods compared fairly with their local stores. Chicago was able to sell such products at lower prices because of its water transportation: the cost of transporting the goods was quite cheap. In return, the farmers of the West would sell produce to the local markets of Chicago, making it a bustling trade city. As such, the East and the West would trade together in the central hub of Chicago, setting the stage for Chicago to become a metropolis.