In April of 1837 an world wide economic crash occurred. As a cure the president and advisors pulled the government out of the banking business. The banks proceeded to quit loaning and began hoarding their cash and nearly 40% of the banks in USA collapsed. The commodity wasn't oil and its dependent industries but cotton and wool. Australia suffered its worse depression ever. Here the rush to move west ramped up. There was a presidential election in the midst of this economic depression, unseating Van Buren and bringing the first Whig, William Henry Harrision into office. There were issues of immigration and religion, this time Catholic Irish and Germans in particular were coming to the USA. Businesses in large cities bore signs saying NINA, "Irish Need Not Apply." Sound familiar? It's the new ones' fault. The countries, languages, and religions change, but apparently we haven't.
Many people came west to escape it, looking for a more secure life, some with enough resources to exploit it. Some succeeded, some starved on the way. Many things and people thrived here consequently and many people and things were destroyed. I have more questions than I have answers.
I'm not the greatest historian but the familiarity of this disquiets me. Where can people go now to make a life? Not many of us is far from living on the street the way things are going. Don't we ever learn anything? And how could a man like Gingrich gain a following in this country? A man who claims poor children are taught to be lazy and ought to be cheated out of what little play or study time they can have to be janitors in their schools. Such monumental stupidity boggles my brain. No wonder I need to just sit and watch the wind blow around for a bit.
posted by Celia | December 06, 2011
6 Comments:
Oh this could be a great historic movie. I need to look for some biographies or historical novels on this. I quoted you on my FB page...but since I am anonymous in linking to my blog...I didn't give you credit...sorry.
I did a lot of research on the westward movement for one of the historic romances I wrote. I picked 1853 when the homestead act made it very tempting (our farm here is one that was settled under that act). Then I did the second on people after they got to Oregon so that was 1855-56 and Oregon's own Trail of Tears. The one I am working on now is 10 years later and right after the Civil War had ended. I have learned things every single time when I thought I knew it all from previous reading. Although these are romances, not history books. I like to know the period and understand the background. One thing that shocked me with Oregon was that although they were very much against the South, they had their own bigotry to discourage blacks from coming here (big fear evidently) they would not allow them to own property and that lasted into the early 1900s. Chinese could not either. Humans really don't change a lot and the talk some put out about nobler earlier times is purely based on ignorance.
oh and I love that photo. I love those kind of rolling hills but see them mostly in the summer, late spring, or early fall. I grew up in Washington but the other side of the Gorge in the hills out of Camas
Rain - the history is fascinating and sometimes very ugly. Horrible things happened to the Chinese who came here. We took the Pendleton Underground tour and went through one of the places the Chinese workers lived, a dirt basement, under several buildings. They had built their own apothecary shop, laundry, card rooms, there in that dark place.
History always fasinates me...even though we seem bound to repeat it time and again.
There are some great books on the pioneer women of Oregon (especially their diaries) that I need to reread.
During one summer in the Oregon cowcamp I checked out so many books from the library that the librarian asked me if I was doing research for a book, Nope just interested.
I too am fascinated by that time. For me, those who made it and lived in sod or log houses draw my interest the most. Their diaries and journals record such privation, yet such dogged determination to make it despite everything.
Thanks for this post. I can almost see the ruts from the wheels.
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