Part 3 is a dramatic, detailed story of the flood itself. I won't summarize Barry's description, but I can't help but point out some disgusting similarities between then and now with flood control, river management, and emergency operations.
First, here's the flood in Greenville (the focus of the Delta). The website has more pics...
Here's New Orleans. The internet is loaded with some awesome, tragic photos; google 'em.
Race was central to the fight against the flood. Unlike during Katrina, the 1927 floods developed slowly, powerfully, throughout the entire basin area. Flooding occurred throughout the area due to heavy precipitation for several months; in the lower Mississippi, the river rose higher and higher as each successive crest pushed down the length of the highest levees ever built. As the river level approached and then topped the crown of the levees, huge efforts of sandbagging, requiring enormous amounts of labor, were necessary. Race dictated who did the physical labor, who made decisions, who had guns to patrol the levees from potential dynamite saboteurs (dynamiting one bank of the river eased tension/level for the other side), who were the overseers. Guns kept blacks from leaving the forced labor camps. Black men were picked up by the police and forced to work if they were not already doing so. Meanwhile, newspapers touted the military-like flood control endeavor as racial progress.
Newspapers nowadays?
Forced labor?
Guns?
This is all very familiar.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
"In the Delta, Development Pays"
From the Civil War to the 1920s, the Mississippi Delta and Basin saw development. And as Barry says on p101: "Development Paid." The Corps continued to build higher and higher levees (as you build a levee and prevent flooding, the overall height increases throughout the river), opening up more and more land for development. Combined with northern capital and railways, the cotton industry boomed, and 2/3 of the world's cotton came from the American South. The alluvial soil was rich from thousands of years of flooding and the white aristocracy bought up these lands, leading to another class of whites "forced to sell" or retain mediocre lands farther from the river. In the minds of the ruling classes, the northern Republican Reconstructionist capitalists and southern plantation-barons, development required 3 things: protection, transport, and labor. Part 3 will dissect the story of river control, which provides protection and transport. Labor, and the complex system of rapidly changing demographics, is the focus of Part 2.
Players:
1) rich white plantation owners. Friendly with northern capitalists after civil war. Percy, a Mississippi senator and plantation owner who was central to development and politics in the early 1900s, is a prototype: family history of wealth, prestige, and power, he wants to protect his legacy and the plantation industry. Generally, these men prefer black share-croppers than any other labor ("superior workers"). They control state industry, even politics usually, but not the levees.
2) poor white rural. Increasingly marginalized as industrialization links southern plantations (cotton) to northern factories (textiles), increasingly poor. Rise of the KKK, rise of Christian fundamentalism, rise of populism aided by new technology: the radio. They see Jews, Catholics (often immigrants before WWI, such as Italians that Percy brought in to work plantations), Blacks, and northerners (carpetbaggers) as polluting their identity as upright Christians who don't gamble or drink (prohibitionists). By the 20s, the KKK would be at least "3 million strong", controlling state governments in Indiana and Colorodo, mayors, sheriffs... comprised of doctors, lawyers, politicians, businessmen. In the end, the KKK would lose power, as it was created as a money-making pyramid scheme intended to enrich the leaders, but would be replaced by white populism.
3) immigrants. major source of labor as Reconstruction lead to industrialization. Often from southern/eastern Europe (not Anglo-Saxon), thus darker, more foreign looking. Their arrival corresponded with urbanization. As to avoid racial violence (worsening throughout early 1900s), and because more and more blacks were going north, Percy brought in Italians to the Delta region to expand his plantation. They mostly lived in squalor similar to black sharecroppers, but they had political voice (via Justice Department and Italian Embassy). As WWI arrived, jingoism and Woodrow Wilson's Americanism prevented further immigration, and and immigrants could not supply the Delta's needs. .
4) northern capitalists. The rulers of the status quo: J.P Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, Rockefeller. Banks, railway companies, investment firms, steel mills, Wall Street. Reconstruction released black labor from plantations to come north and work factories. As railroads allowed for interstate commerce, the north saw benefit in developing the south. Cotton was big big business (not so much nowadays) and more labor was necessary.
5) blacks. As most of us unlearned the misinformation from grade school, the civil war was not fought to free the slaves. In fact, Lincoln would rather have avoided the whole issue. Thus, after "emancipation", though many blacks were able to improve their station, most were victim to state governments' imposing continued indentured servitude. When Reconstructionists prevented this, sharecropping replaced slavery. This appeased the northern capitalists (as a "morally acceptable" way to expand plantation output), plantation owners, and even some immigrants and blacks (the few who were able to share in profits), but not the rural whites.
Thus, you have an evolving demographic landscape in the Delta, alongside an evolving ecological relationship with the river, with the goal of serving the economic relevance of the South. Floods threaten the blacks and (few) immigrants that live there and they threaten the aristocratic social prominence of plantation barons, but they do not threaten the rural whites. They indirectly threaten northern capital. But "protection" and "transport" are ruled by a federal agency, the Corps, which is not really directly responsible to any of the players. The Corps really wants to protect its own legitamacy. "Levees-only" was the right answer 'cause the Corps said so. As a state leader, if you argued against it, you wouldn't get federally financed infrastructure, a rarity in the early 20th century. You would be criticized by your constituency who said you did nothing in response to the last floods, you would not gain support of the plantation owner community, and you'd lose your job. In the 20s, when the river crested over the levees, the entire community rallied together to fill and lay sandbags. The same way the river is controlled nowadays.
The scene is set for a disaster laid out along tense social and racial fault lines. Just like nowadays.
In a way, the Army Corps of Engineers are the true fathers of the Blues. Check out Jimmie Rodgers and Charley Patton.
Players:
1) rich white plantation owners. Friendly with northern capitalists after civil war. Percy, a Mississippi senator and plantation owner who was central to development and politics in the early 1900s, is a prototype: family history of wealth, prestige, and power, he wants to protect his legacy and the plantation industry. Generally, these men prefer black share-croppers than any other labor ("superior workers"). They control state industry, even politics usually, but not the levees.2) poor white rural. Increasingly marginalized as industrialization links southern plantations (cotton) to northern factories (textiles), increasingly poor. Rise of the KKK, rise of Christian fundamentalism, rise of populism aided by new technology: the radio. They see Jews, Catholics (often immigrants before WWI, such as Italians that Percy brought in to work plantations), Blacks, and northerners (carpetbaggers) as polluting their identity as upright Christians who don't gamble or drink (prohibitionists). By the 20s, the KKK would be at least "3 million strong", controlling state governments in Indiana and Colorodo, mayors, sheriffs... comprised of doctors, lawyers, politicians, businessmen. In the end, the KKK would lose power, as it was created as a money-making pyramid scheme intended to enrich the leaders, but would be replaced by white populism.
3) immigrants. major source of labor as Reconstruction lead to industrialization. Often from southern/eastern Europe (not Anglo-Saxon), thus darker, more foreign looking. Their arrival corresponded with urbanization. As to avoid racial violence (worsening throughout early 1900s), and because more and more blacks were going north, Percy brought in Italians to the Delta region to expand his plantation. They mostly lived in squalor similar to black sharecroppers, but they had political voice (via Justice Department and Italian Embassy). As WWI arrived, jingoism and Woodrow Wilson's Americanism prevented further immigration, and and immigrants could not supply the Delta's needs. .
4) northern capitalists. The rulers of the status quo: J.P Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, Rockefeller. Banks, railway companies, investment firms, steel mills, Wall Street. Reconstruction released black labor from plantations to come north and work factories. As railroads allowed for interstate commerce, the north saw benefit in developing the south. Cotton was big big business (not so much nowadays) and more labor was necessary.
5) blacks. As most of us unlearned the misinformation from grade school, the civil war was not fought to free the slaves. In fact, Lincoln would rather have avoided the whole issue. Thus, after "emancipation", though many blacks were able to improve their station, most were victim to state governments' imposing continued indentured servitude. When Reconstructionists prevented this, sharecropping replaced slavery. This appeased the northern capitalists (as a "morally acceptable" way to expand plantation output), plantation owners, and even some immigrants and blacks (the few who were able to share in profits), but not the rural whites.
Thus, you have an evolving demographic landscape in the Delta, alongside an evolving ecological relationship with the river, with the goal of serving the economic relevance of the South. Floods threaten the blacks and (few) immigrants that live there and they threaten the aristocratic social prominence of plantation barons, but they do not threaten the rural whites. They indirectly threaten northern capital. But "protection" and "transport" are ruled by a federal agency, the Corps, which is not really directly responsible to any of the players. The Corps really wants to protect its own legitamacy. "Levees-only" was the right answer 'cause the Corps said so. As a state leader, if you argued against it, you wouldn't get federally financed infrastructure, a rarity in the early 20th century. You would be criticized by your constituency who said you did nothing in response to the last floods, you would not gain support of the plantation owner community, and you'd lose your job. In the 20s, when the river crested over the levees, the entire community rallied together to fill and lay sandbags. The same way the river is controlled nowadays.
The scene is set for a disaster laid out along tense social and racial fault lines. Just like nowadays.
In a way, the Army Corps of Engineers are the true fathers of the Blues. Check out Jimmie Rodgers and Charley Patton.
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Centralized Power Structure
Part 1 is the story of specific men (Eads, Humphreys, Ellet): engineers who made specific decisions based on their individual motivations. Some people find their study/understanding of history and current events is enriched by the biographies of individual persons. I tend to focus on the bigger forces behind the individuals: what ideologies they represent, what environment produced such people.
The antiracist perspective is similar: racism is less a set of behaviors conducted by and directed towards individuals, but rather the inequity historically perpetuated in societal institutions. This "perpetuation" is key, and can be seen as institutional "path dependence." In the antiracist perspective, this means wealth, power, and capability stay concentrated within a demographic heirarcy, with white men of western european ancestry generally at the top. These "winners" are not inherently greedy and imperious by nature, but exist in a complex system that define who they are and what role they place in the system. Essentially, the antiracist perspective is at odds with the traditional American attitude of the "self-made man", where one's station in life is a direct result of one's individual character and moral fiber.
Barry utilizes both the traditional and antiracist lens in his history of how Mississippi River engineering evolved. He details the relationships among the individuals, speeches they gave, memos they wrote. But he also describes the growing rift between the Army Corps of Engineers and civilian engineers. The former was centralized (in DC), historically driven, an esoteric, closed society. Likewise, civilian engineers were driven by science, decentralized, and often educated in universities instead of West Point. Until 1835, West Point was the only educational institution for engineering, with the top students going into the Corps. Their main purpose was closely related to military objectives, such as fortification, mapping, navigation channels, and trenches. The political stature of the Corps, not surprisingly, increased during the Civil War. But as civilian uses of water ways resumed after the Civil War, Mississippi River management through the Corps was subject to path dependence: an organization that is not accustomed to sharing power and responsibility. Humphreys was a product of his environment: wealth, privilege, entitlement, leading him to West Point and then great power in the military beaurocracy. Though he originally believed himself to be a scientist, his rise to power through the civil war reinforced the "soldier" in him, with self-preservation of himself and his Corps as his prime motivation. By refusing to accept the scientific authority of prominent civilian engineers (Eads) and risk losing their own prominence and financial legitamacy, the Corps made poor recommendations regarding levees, outlets, and jetties-- essentially just to disagree with and sabotage civilian engineers! Eads, on the other hand, represents the adaptive (non-path dependent) perspective of qualitative research. Instead of West Point, Eads taught himself about the river by walking the bottom, salvaging wrecks. He taught himself lobbying by his own efforts to grow his business salvaging boats. He was one of the first to use steel in his designs. His flexibility was a product of his environment: a decentralized system of education, without rigid path-dependent structure, with many disciplines (mathematics, boating, capitalism, engineering, commerce) contributing. The Corps, on the other hand, was centralized into an institution with responsibility not to the community, or even investors, but to the Secretary of War.
These dynamic events led to the "levees only" policy of management of the Mississippi River. In one light, the stupid decisions of some individuals were the cause of a long history of poor management of water-ways nationwide, leading to the Katrina floods. In another light, the concepts of hegemony, path dependence, self-preservation, centralized authority, and non-adaptive systems were the basis of the "levees only" policy. Thus, one solution/reaction to Katrina floods would be to discredit the "levees only" perspective and the Corps. (Though, interestingly, Humphreys did recognize the danger of "levees only" with good scientific observation, his final conclusions were biased by politics). Perhaps this truly is a necessary reaction. However, a more meangingful reaction would be to ensure scientific integrity with decentralization of expert authority, facilitate community representation in decision making, and encourage adaptive reasoning with many viewpoints.
Part 2 revolves around the politics of the River--in a democracy, we can assume this means representation (and the lack of it). In my next post, I'll dive into political ecology!
The antiracist perspective is similar: racism is less a set of behaviors conducted by and directed towards individuals, but rather the inequity historically perpetuated in societal institutions. This "perpetuation" is key, and can be seen as institutional "path dependence." In the antiracist perspective, this means wealth, power, and capability stay concentrated within a demographic heirarcy, with white men of western european ancestry generally at the top. These "winners" are not inherently greedy and imperious by nature, but exist in a complex system that define who they are and what role they place in the system. Essentially, the antiracist perspective is at odds with the traditional American attitude of the "self-made man", where one's station in life is a direct result of one's individual character and moral fiber.Barry utilizes both the traditional and antiracist lens in his history of how Mississippi River engineering evolved. He details the relationships among the individuals, speeches they gave, memos they wrote. But he also describes the growing rift between the Army Corps of Engineers and civilian engineers. The former was centralized (in DC), historically driven, an esoteric, closed society. Likewise, civilian engineers were driven by science, decentralized, and often educated in universities instead of West Point. Until 1835, West Point was the only educational institution for engineering, with the top students going into the Corps. Their main purpose was closely related to military objectives, such as fortification, mapping, navigation channels, and trenches. The political stature of the Corps, not surprisingly, increased during the Civil War. But as civilian uses of water ways resumed after the Civil War, Mississippi River management through the Corps was subject to path dependence: an organization that is not accustomed to sharing power and responsibility. Humphreys was a product of his environment: wealth, privilege, entitlement, leading him to West Point and then great power in the military beaurocracy. Though he originally believed himself to be a scientist, his rise to power through the civil war reinforced the "soldier" in him, with self-preservation of himself and his Corps as his prime motivation. By refusing to accept the scientific authority of prominent civilian engineers (Eads) and risk losing their own prominence and financial legitamacy, the Corps made poor recommendations regarding levees, outlets, and jetties-- essentially just to disagree with and sabotage civilian engineers! Eads, on the other hand, represents the adaptive (non-path dependent) perspective of qualitative research. Instead of West Point, Eads taught himself about the river by walking the bottom, salvaging wrecks. He taught himself lobbying by his own efforts to grow his business salvaging boats. He was one of the first to use steel in his designs. His flexibility was a product of his environment: a decentralized system of education, without rigid path-dependent structure, with many disciplines (mathematics, boating, capitalism, engineering, commerce) contributing. The Corps, on the other hand, was centralized into an institution with responsibility not to the community, or even investors, but to the Secretary of War.
These dynamic events led to the "levees only" policy of management of the Mississippi River. In one light, the stupid decisions of some individuals were the cause of a long history of poor management of water-ways nationwide, leading to the Katrina floods. In another light, the concepts of hegemony, path dependence, self-preservation, centralized authority, and non-adaptive systems were the basis of the "levees only" policy. Thus, one solution/reaction to Katrina floods would be to discredit the "levees only" perspective and the Corps. (Though, interestingly, Humphreys did recognize the danger of "levees only" with good scientific observation, his final conclusions were biased by politics). Perhaps this truly is a necessary reaction. However, a more meangingful reaction would be to ensure scientific integrity with decentralization of expert authority, facilitate community representation in decision making, and encourage adaptive reasoning with many viewpoints.
Part 2 revolves around the politics of the River--in a democracy, we can assume this means representation (and the lack of it). In my next post, I'll dive into political ecology!
Man verses River: Man Wins!
I have just finished Part 1 and there are a few big ideas I want to discuss, but first I wanted to touch on the concept of technology in the book thus far. Part 1 revolves around the lives of some prominent engineers around the 1840s to 1870s. This was an era of scientific progress and hubris, when nature was deemed subject to the rules of man's science. Darwin's Origin of Species, steel, the telegraph, Pasteur's microbiological research--all coincided with the American Civil War, the steady expansion of the railroad, and the expansion (west) and unification (north-south) of a nation. The Mississippi River played a gigantic role in the evolution of the US. Barry does an excellent job exalting the mightiness of the river: as a powerful ecosystem, capable of creating, enriching, and destroying land; as a massive highway network absolutely vital to the growing manufacturing industries in the northeast, the plantation export industry in the south, and the taming and settling of the west; and as a significant threat to thousands of square miles of fertile lands with increasing population density.
With a river so important for the economic, political, commercial, and military viability of the country, coupled with the legacy of West Point, the Army Corps of Engineers was the authority on what to do with the river. Why do anything to the river? Because it is there! And as Men we must do things with it! But, more seriously, as people continued to populate the country, floods were becoming more and more disastrous, regularly capturing the national attention in newspaper headlines. Floods are an obvious issue, but other problems involved sandbars that would develop at the mouth of the river, impeding bigger and bigger ships from transporting in bigger and bigger loads. As the reach of trains crept farther west, bridges were increasingly necessary, pitting railroad proponents against the steamboat industry.
I found it interesting the "choices" available to the engineers working with rivers in those days. So I thought I'd list them with pictures:
-bridges, getting bigger for trains, experimenting with steel, tended to collapse in early 19th century
-levees: 1) had been built away from river shore, to allow space for flooding, but this worsened force against the levee walls if river overflowed; 2) eventually built along river shore to encourage powerful current to scour the bottom of the river, increase speed of river, and thereby reduce flood
-man-made cutoffs, to ease river navigation, increase speed of current (click for video model)
-jetties, to extend mouth of river and disrupt sandbar formation
-reservoirs and river outlets, to contain water during high river levels and floods
-dredging to eliminate sandbars
All of these techniques were complicated by quickly evolving technology, materials, and knowledge about Mississippi river hydraulics.
In my next entry, however, I will discuss how the science of engineering was further complicated by the path dependence of centralized power.
With a river so important for the economic, political, commercial, and military viability of the country, coupled with the legacy of West Point, the Army Corps of Engineers was the authority on what to do with the river. Why do anything to the river? Because it is there! And as Men we must do things with it! But, more seriously, as people continued to populate the country, floods were becoming more and more disastrous, regularly capturing the national attention in newspaper headlines. Floods are an obvious issue, but other problems involved sandbars that would develop at the mouth of the river, impeding bigger and bigger ships from transporting in bigger and bigger loads. As the reach of trains crept farther west, bridges were increasingly necessary, pitting railroad proponents against the steamboat industry.I found it interesting the "choices" available to the engineers working with rivers in those days. So I thought I'd list them with pictures:
-bridges, getting bigger for trains, experimenting with steel, tended to collapse in early 19th century
-levees: 1) had been built away from river shore, to allow space for flooding, but this worsened force against the levee walls if river overflowed; 2) eventually built along river shore to encourage powerful current to scour the bottom of the river, increase speed of river, and thereby reduce flood
-man-made cutoffs, to ease river navigation, increase speed of current (click for video model)
-jetties, to extend mouth of river and disrupt sandbar formation
-reservoirs and river outlets, to contain water during high river levels and floods
-dredging to eliminate sandbars
All of these techniques were complicated by quickly evolving technology, materials, and knowledge about Mississippi river hydraulics.
In my next entry, however, I will discuss how the science of engineering was further complicated by the path dependence of centralized power.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Welcome!
Welcome to my blog!
I created this as a way for me to (publicly) explore John Barry's book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. You can join me!
I haven't started the book yet, but I want to introduce myself and explain where I'm coming from.
I was born in New Orleans and grew up in St. Charles parish. I've evacuated for many storms--usually a great week of vacation early in the school year. I love the city and I know it will remain forever. I currently live in mid-city, New Orleans, blocks from Bayou St. John.
Katrina sucked, and there are some discernible reasons for why it happened, but finger-pointing is a sport in New Orleans nowadays. I will do my best to prevent this from becoming an angry blame journal. Instead, I want to reflect on Barry's assessment and compare his historical perspective to my own understanding of New Orleans today.
What is my perspective?
-Medical: I just finished med school, having started it right before the storm hit. It has given me the sometimes unwanted opportunity to witness firsthand the ongoing effects of the storm. In clinical work throughout the city, I have been confronted with the personal, subtle, dramatic face of suffering, rebuilding, poverty, racism, hope, and loss.
-Public Health: I have almost finished a master's in public health. This has more than anything affected my understanding of how/why disease and ill-health occur and what can/should we as a society do about it. There are definite, complex links between socioeconomic demographics and wellness. As a student of "International Health and Development", I know that the roots of wellness go even deeper, to international politics, transnational agribusiness, climate change, reproductive health, unsustainable resource use, economic development, information and communication technology, and history. "Wellness" is broadly defined: rather than absence of disease, it really means a person's (or community's) ability/capacity to secure the details of a happy, productive life. Often one person's wellness is produced by the sacrifice of many others'.
-Antiracist: I feel hesitant to throw that word out there, but it describes my understanding of the south, history, and development. I believe that race plays the central role in the American experience on many levels. Whereas racism often refers to personal behavior, the real issue is institutionalized inequity, which is pervasive and rooted in history. It pertains to where people live, who gets loans, who gets which jobs, who goes to which schools, who goes to jail, who benefits/loses with the status quo. This will definitely be a theme that I will return to as I read Barry's book.
-Local: like I said, I love New Orleans. I will be leaving it soon, temporarily, but I intend to return and continue to rebuild with my neighbors. I see it as never ending, where the process is more important than the end result, because we can always make things better for ourselves.
Here are some questions I hope to address as I read Rising Tide, based on some themes in Population/Environment/Development theory:
Sustainable Development—what is the best way to pursue development? Can we “develop” with environmental sustainability? Can we “develop” with social equity? How can we balance the needs of industry, citizenry, politicians, and consumers?
Political Ecology—who controls local resources? Who benefits from exploitation of those resources, and who is negatively affected from exploitation of those resources?
The River as a Complex Adaptive System—what are all of the components/players that make up “the Great River”? How can we (the people/entities that interact with the River) adapt to the uncertainty of the environment? How will we learn from the mistakes of the past?
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