Monday, December 8, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Monday, December 7, 1914. End of the Maritz Rebellion and calling for a Christmas Truce.
Pope Benedict XV called for an official truce between the warring nations so that Christmas could be celebrated.
The National Assembly of Serbia issued their owar aims publically, including the unification of the southern Slavic nations into one country.
Boer General Christian Frederick Beyers drowned in the Vaal River bringing to an end the Maritz Rebellion.
Last edition:
Sunday, December 6, 1914. Villa and Zapata enter Mexico City.
A Day In the Life: Today In Wyoming's History: December 7
Today in this series we take a look at our entry from Today In Wyoming's History: December 7: on the topic of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941. When I posted this last year, I put in Mountain Time as well as Hawaii Time. Here I'll insert how my day likely would have gone had I been my current age, in my current location, on that Sunday, instead of this one.
December 7
Today is, by State Statute, WS 8-4-106, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. The Statute provides:
(a) In recognition of the members of the armed forces who lost their lives and those who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941, December 7 of each year is designated as "Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day". The day shall be appropriately observed in the public schools of the state.
(b) The governor, not later than September 1 of each year, shall issue a proclamation requesting proper observance of "Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day".
(c) This section shall not affect commercial paper, the making or execution of written agreements or judicial proceedings, or authorize public schools,businesses or state and local government offices to close.
Your Recollections: What about you?
Do you have any personal recollections about December 7, 1941? Either first hand, or that you recall hearing from family and friends? And, by that, not just Pearl Harbor stories, but I'd be very interested to learn of any family recollections from those at home, on that day. Wyoming is three hours ahead of Hawaii, did your family hear it that morning, or later in the day? Just after church, or while tuning in fora football game? Any recollection is welcome.
1941 US military installations were attack in Hawaii by the Imperial Japanese Navy bringing the US formally into World War Two.
It was a surprisingly warm day in Central Wyoming that fateful day. The high was in the upper 40s, and low in the lower 20s. Not atypical temperatures for December but certainly warmer than it can be.
Events played out like this:
0342 Hawaii Time, 0642 Mountain Standard Time: The minesweeper USS Condor sighted a periscope and radioed the USS Ward: "Sighted submerged submarine on westerly course, speed 9 knots.”
I would have been up at that time of the day, probably shepherding the family towards getting them out the door for Mass.
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USS Condor
0610 Hawaii Time, 0910 Mountain Standard Time: Japanese aircraft carriers turn into the wind and launch the first attack wave.
Chances are by this time, I'd be just about to leave Mass, or would have left Mass. Now we usally swing by a grocery store and buy donuts, then go home, but at that time I'm not sure if there was a grocery store that was open here on Sundays. I somewhat doubt it, in which case we'd all just head home.
0645-0653: Hawaii Time, 0945-0953 Mountain Standard Time: The USS Ward, mostly staffed by Naval Reservists, sights and engages a Japanese mini submarine first reported by the USS Connor, sinking the submarine.The Ward reports the entire action, albeit in code, noting: "“We have dropped depth charges upon sub operating in defensive sea area" and “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area.”
We'd probably have just been finishing breakfast and reading the newspaper.
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USS Ward
At this point in time, most Wyomingites would be up and enjoying the day. A large percentage would have gone to Church for the Sunday morning and have now started the rest of their Sundays.
0702 Hawaii Time, 1002 Mountain Standard Time: An operator at the U.S. Army's newly installed Opana Mobile Radar Station, one of six such facilities on Oahu, sights 50 aircraft hits on his radar scope, which is confirmed by his co-operator. They call Ft. Shafter and report the sighting.
If possible, I'd have headed out the door with my son to go duck and goose hunting. But if the weekend went exactly like this weekend, in which I branded yesterday, have some work that I probably ought to do today, and where my wife wishes to put up a Christmas tree, maybe not. We'll see, perhaps.
0715 Hawaii Time, 1015 Mountain Standard Time: USS Ward's message decoded and reported to Admiral Kimmel, who orders back to "wait for verification."
0720 Hawaii Time, 1020 Mountain Standard Time: U.S. Army lieutenant at Ft. Shafter reviews radar operator's message and believes the message to apply to a flight of B-17s which are known to be in bound from California. He orders that the message is not to be worried about.
Hopefully, I'd be checking the creeks and ponds for ducks.
0733 Hawaii Time, 1033 Mountain Standard Time, 1233 Eastern Time: Gen. George Marshall issues a warning order to Gen. Short that hostilities many be imminent, but due to atmospheric conditions, it has to go by telegraph rather than radio. It was not routed to go as a priority and would only arrive after the attack was well underway.
0749 Hawaii Time, 1049 Mountain Standard Time: Japanese Air-attack commander Mitsuo Fuchida looks down on Pearl Harbor and observes that the US carriers are absent. He orders his telegraph operator to tap out to, to, to: signalling "attack" and then: to ra, to ra, to ra: attack, surprise achieved. This is interpreted as some as Tora, Tora, Tora, "tiger, tiger, tiger" which it was not. Those who heard that sometimes interpreted to be indicative of the Japanese phrase; "A tigergoes out 1,000 ri and returns without fail.”
0755 Hawaii Time, 1055 Mountain Standard Time: Commander Logan C. Ramsey, at the Command Center on Ford Island, looks out a window to see a low-flying plane he believes to be a reckless and
improperly acting U.S. aircraft. He then notices “something black fall out of that plane” and realizes instantly an air raid is in progress. He orders telegraph operators to sendout an uncoded message to every ship and the base that: "AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL"
We'd probably still be out, checking ponds and creeks.
0800 Hawaii time, 11:00 Mountain Standard Time. B-17s which were to be stationed at Oahu begin to land, right in the midst of the Japanese air raid.
0810 Hawaii Time, 11:10 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Arizona fatally hit.
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USS Arizona
0817 Hawaii Time: 11:17 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Helm notices a submarine ensnared in the the antisubmarine net and engages it. It submerges but this partially floods the submarine, which must be abandoned.
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USS Helm
0839 Hawaii Time. 1139 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Monaghan, attempting to get out of the harbor, spotted another miniature submarine and rammed and depth charged it.
USS Monaghan
0850 Hawaii Time. 11:50 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Nevada, with her steam now up, heads for open water. It wouldn't make it and it was intentionally run aground to avoid it being sunk.
USS Nevada
0854 Hawaii Time. 1150 Mountain Standard Time. The Japanese second wave hits.
0929 Hawaii Time. 1229 Mountain Standard Time. NBC interrupts regular programming to announce that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.
If we had a truck with a radio (and of course it'd have been a two wheel drive truck), this is when we first would have learned of anything out hunting. But most pickups didn't have radios, and as my seven year old truck is the most basic one I could find, I doubt a truck I would have owned in 1941 would have had one. If I'd been driving a rough equivalent, say a 1934 Dodge, probably not.
At home, however, my wife would have had the radio on, she would have learned of the attack and started worrying right then. We have, after all, a 17 year old son.
0930 Hawaii Time. 1230 Mountain Standard Time. CBS interrupts regular programming to announce that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.
0930 Hawaii Time. 1230 Mountain Standard Time. The bow of the USS Shaw, a destroyer, is blown off. The ship would be repaired and used in the war.
Explosion on the Shaw.
0938 Hawaii Time, 1238 Mountain Standard Time. CBS erroneously announces that Manila was being attacked. It wasn't far off, however, as the Philippines would be attacked that day (December 8 given the
International Date Line).
Out hunting, we wouldn't have been back yet. At home, the anxiety would have been increased.
10:00 Hawaii Time, 13:00 Mountain Standard Time
The USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor on this day.
1300 Hawaii Time. 1600 Mountain Standard Time. Japanese task forces begins to turn towards Japan.
A third wave was by the Japanese debated, but not launched.
Wyoming is three hours ahead of Hawaii (less than I'd have guessed) making the local time here about 10:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning when the attack started.. The national radio networks began to interrupt their programming about 12:30. On NBC the announcement fell between Sammy Kaye's Sunday Serenade and the University of Chicago Round Table, which was featuring a program on Canada at war. On NBC the day's episode of Great Plays was interrupted for their announcement. CBS had just begun to broadcast The World Today which actually headlined with their announcement fairly seamlessly.
We would probably have come home about 3:00 or 4:00, maybe 5:00, and have learned of the days events then. It'd be a stressful, and dare I say it, exciting night, as the future was pondered. Including the future of "what will I do tomorrow morning".
And how about you and yours? How would this day have played out for you?
Random Snippets: Today In Wyoming's History: December 7
Today In Wyoming's History: December 7:
I also note, at least according to an engineer who explained it to me, that December 7 is also a date involving an astronomical anomaly, that being that it is the day of the year which, in the Northern Hemisphere, features the earliest sunset. That doesn't, of course, make it the shortest day of the year, it's just that the sunsets the earliest on this day, or so I am told
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Sunday, December 6, 1914. Villa and Zapata enter Mexico City.
60,000 men, the combined forces of Villa and Zapata, entered Mexico City.
Carranza retreated to Veracruz.
Álvaro Obregón issued a 14 point statement on why he opposed Villa. Part of the statement confirmed Pancho Villa had executed Scottish expatriate William S. Benton in February.
German forces occupied Łódź,
Serbians forced the Austro Hungarians back to Belgrade.
Last edition:
Friday, December 4, 1914. An alliance based on opposition.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Lex Anteinternet: Levis
A little over a year ago I blogged on Levis with this entry:
Yes, jeans.
That a person would ram a car into a story and steal jeans surprised me, but what really surprised me is that the value of the jeans was reported to be $700.00 a pair.
I'm sorry, but $700.00 for blue jeans is insane. A person shouldn't be buying what are essentially work pants, no matter how dressed up or fancified, for $700.00 a pair. Shoot, a really good men's suit cost about that, and they're practically hand made for a particular purpose.
That there even are blue jeans that are priced at that level, and that people buy them, is disturbing really. There's something just not right about that. Basically, if you want to wear blue jeans, and I do a fair amount, the sane thing to do would be to buy a good pair at a reasonable price. Levis, Lees, Wranglers, all fit that bill. They're relatively expensive, it seems to me, but not at the unreasonable rate. $700 is so high a person is buying them for some reason other than that they like blue jeans, and that ought to be reconsidered.
Lex Anteinternet: Levis: Rancher, wearing blue jeans, in the early 1940s. The roll up cuff was extremely common at that time. At the time I started this entr...I was reminded of this as last week I heard a newstory in which theives rammed a car into a store and stole jeans.
Yes, jeans.
That a person would ram a car into a story and steal jeans surprised me, but what really surprised me is that the value of the jeans was reported to be $700.00 a pair.
I'm sorry, but $700.00 for blue jeans is insane. A person shouldn't be buying what are essentially work pants, no matter how dressed up or fancified, for $700.00 a pair. Shoot, a really good men's suit cost about that, and they're practically hand made for a particular purpose.
That there even are blue jeans that are priced at that level, and that people buy them, is disturbing really. There's something just not right about that. Basically, if you want to wear blue jeans, and I do a fair amount, the sane thing to do would be to buy a good pair at a reasonable price. Levis, Lees, Wranglers, all fit that bill. They're relatively expensive, it seems to me, but not at the unreasonable rate. $700 is so high a person is buying them for some reason other than that they like blue jeans, and that ought to be reconsidered.
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons: This year marks the 130 th Anniversary of the construction of the first sheep wagon built by James Candlish. Many have attributed the inv...
NCHS seeks $350,000 for John F. Welsh auditorium
NCHS seeks $350,000 for John F. Welsh auditorium
I realize it isn't in any way related to the failed effort to get a pool, but I guess I don't want to let that one go. Here there's a campaign to improve the auditorium, and the more power to them, but what about the pool?
Of course, they're only seeking $350,000 here, not an unreasonable amount, but if a private drive for the auditorium seems wise, why not one for the pool, while there's still space to put it in?
I realize it isn't in any way related to the failed effort to get a pool, but I guess I don't want to let that one go. Here there's a campaign to improve the auditorium, and the more power to them, but what about the pool?
Of course, they're only seeking $350,000 here, not an unreasonable amount, but if a private drive for the auditorium seems wise, why not one for the pool, while there's still space to put it in?
Thursday, December 4, 2014
$40/barrel?
Driven by Saudi Arabian efforts, the price of petroleum oil is falling through the floor. When I last checked, it was down under $70/bbl. I read a prediction the other day that it may actually fall as low as $40/bbl. While I haven't checked to make sure, at $40/bbl, it will be at a historic low in real terms. That is, in actual value, it would never have been that cheap before.
I've been sort of waiting for something like this to happen for awhile, but not quite in this fashion. That's mostly due to having a long term memory. I have lived here my entire life, and I well remember the last time the price of oil went through the floor. The irony of our local economy has long been that if the price of oil is high, the times are good here, and the economy super heated. If the price is low, we locally slide into a recession or even a depression. For those who experienced this in the early 1980s, a recollection of an oilfield depression is pretty strong. For those of us who are older with good memories, or who had parents who recalled it, a similar event was also strongly recalled that occurred in the 1960s. And for students of history, we now that another one happened right after World War One, in the 1930s, and again in the 1940s following World War Two.
Now, not all of these events were the same in scope or impact, although they were all big deals locally. The size of some towns decreased by about 80% following the one in the late 1940s.
Of course, some things have changed. For one thing, the cause and circumstances of the prior falls were all a bit different than what we're currently seeing. The declines after World War One and World War Two came during an era when we were a net oil exporter and there was a sudden global decline in demand due to the end of the wars. The decline in the 1930s was due to a global depression when all economic output drastically declined.
The most recent decline, of the early 1980s, was due to increased Arabian production combined with a fall at the pump, as OPEC began to become a bit unraveled and also as it became clear to the Saudi Arabians that a distressed American economy was bad for its long term economic stability. That came in an era when we were desperately dependant on Arabian oil, something that came about unnoticed during the 1960s but which became obvious in 1973 when OPEC enacted an embargo on export to the U.S. due to our support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Every year after that the US tried to become more independent of foreign oil but failed, leading to a decade of rising oil prices, until OPEC, or really Saudi Arabia, fearing American economic instability, dropped the prices, and as OPEC lost a lot of its steam in the wake of the Iranian revolution.
The decline of the early 1980s lead to an oil patch depression that really only slowly began to go away in the late 1980s, going into an oil patch recession that really lasted up until the mid 1990s at least. There was some stability after that, and then a boom erupted in the last decade that remains unabated. Local economist debate if there is a boom, but there is. Anyone can see it with their naked eyes. The cost of anything land related has shot up, as its become scarce, and we're up over 100% statistical full employment.
But that's how things were around 1980-1982 as well, and hence the waiting for the other shoe to drop that long term locals have had, and indeed that some in the industry have had. It can't go on forever, it would seem. But recently people have sort of dared to think it sort of might, even though that clearly cannot happen. Once all the fields are drilled, they're drilled. That creates its own infrastructure, of course, which must be serviced, but still, it isn't the same as when all the regional rigs are working.
But the times aren't quite what they were in the early 80s either. For one thing, and apparently the cause of the current Saudi effort, the US is not really that dependant on foreign oil anymore. Advances in technology have opened up vast resources in the U.S., and the U.S. is an energy, albeit not oil, exporter. As prices have stabilized at a fairly high, by historical standards, pump rate, it's also been the case that Americans acclimated to it, which nobody expected, making the demand fairly stable. And as that's occurred, its actually declined. A new generation of Americans is not car enamored. And the historical memory of foreign oil enslavement remains strong such that there is widespread support for increased CAFE standards and even from shifting away for oil entirely, if possible, for fuel. So price stability hasn't resulted so far in a price fall, exploration has kept on keeping on bringing more resources to the global supply at what was the existing rate, thereby increasing the profitable supply while decreasing the foreign imports. And, as North American is one continent and one giant oil province, the technological advances that have made this possible in the United States, that being horizontal drilling, have also made it possible in Canada, which has pretty much supplanted Arabia as our go to source for petroleum.
It took the Saudis a long time to awaken to this, and they probably just didn't believe it would last, but they're awake now and according to what I've read, and what industry insiders have told me, this is a calculated Saudi effort to shut down American exploration. The thesis is that by depressing the price it'll fall below the level at which it will be profitable to explore in the United States and Canada, and it seems to be working. According to what I'm reading, drilling is in fact being postponed. It isn't as if the newly known fields are going to go away, but contrary to what some of the news was on these fields earlier in the recent boom, it isn't as if all of these fields weren't known in some way before. Some are wholly new, however.
The long term impact of this will be really interesting. Chances are pretty good that in the new oil provinces in the United States and Canada there will be an economic downturn. My guess is that it might be pretty stout in North Dakota, which hadn't seen exploration of this type since the Williston Basin days of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and which otherwise had a relatively depressed farm economy. In Wyoming and Montana, where the boom has been very real but somewhat muted, the impact is unlikely to be as severe. This will mean, I suspect, that the percentage of oil the U.S. imports will rise, but my guess is that it won't rise as spectacularly as the Saudis hope it will. Perhaps showing how severe it was, the memory of the import crisis of the 1970s has not really ever gone away and there remains pretty strong support for more and more fuel efficient vehicles, a movement that's also tied into increasing environmental concerns. Somewhat related in terms of impact, it appears that the American cultural fascination with automobiles is ending, and that also means that cars are viewed increasingly as only one of several utilitarian options for getting around, and not one that's seen as glamorous or even desirable by younger people, who are willing to buy what's economical and abandon cars altogether if economically rational. Moreover, given the advance in technology in oil production, the United States will retain at this point an ability to increase production, which will mean that the Saudis will have to keep the price low in order to keep their share of production high. That has long term impacts on them, as even though they'll be making money, they have to do it through low prices and high production, a program that has long term impacts on their reserves and their own economy.
Friday, December 4, 1914. An alliance based on opposition.
Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata met in Xochimilco, Mexico to negotiate an alliance between them in their opposition to Venustiano Carranza.
Last edition:
Sunday, November 29, 1914. Serbian withdrawal.
Being Consumed - Catholic Stuff You Should Know
Being Consumed - Catholic Stuff You Should Know
In one of the occasional examples of synchronicity that pops up, the other day I posted on National Small Business Saturday and mentioned Distributism, the economic theory applying the principal of subsidiarity in my post. Then I ran across this podcast entry on Consumerism.
This is posted on Catholic Stuff You Should Know, and therefore it does address some religious themes, but only barely really, mostly focusing on Consumerism through a Distributist lens. To a slightly aggravating degree, early in the podcast the speakers excuse of their comments by noting Communism when in fact those comments that they feel might be controversial aren't Communist or Socialist at all, but rather purely Distributist. That they'd discuss Distributism isn't too surprising on one hand, as the economic philosophy was developed by Catholic thinkers, but to hear it discussed is fairly surprising as so few people know what it is.
Anyhow, for a really Distributist discussion of Consumerism, here's one.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Today In Wyoming's History: December 3 Updated
Today In Wyoming's History: December 3:
2014 Colorado's Governor Hickenlooper apologized to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes for Colorado's actions leading to the November 29, 1864 Sand Creek Massacre.
2014 Colorado's Governor Hickenlooper apologized to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes for Colorado's actions leading to the November 29, 1864 Sand Creek Massacre.
Rail Transportation
Very early locomotive, on display on the back of a railroad flat car.
Recently we've been posting a lot about transportation. We've done horses and mule, walking, water transportation and bicycles so far. Here we're considering trains.
Late oil fired steam engine, on display in Douglas Wyoming.
Locomotives, or at least steam engines, are so associated with the second half of the 19th Century that it's a shock to realize that the first steam locomotive was built in 1784 and the first railway model was built in the US in 1794. Amazingly early. The first actual working railway was built just a few years later, in 1804, in the United Kingdom. That early line was an industrial ore hauler, so at least from the US prospective, trains have ended up where they started, hauling things, rather than people, for the most part. Sort of a case of the past being prologue to the future, really. The first working railroad in the US came on in 1830, with Baltimore and Ohio. It was a hopeless crude thing, but it was a start, and from there on trains developed rapidly.
The first locomotives basically looked like a boiler, with gears, on a platform, because that's what they were. They soon began, however, to more closely resemble things we'd recognize as trains.
Really early train on display on the flatcars of a train in 1900. Note that the passenger cars on the old train are coaches with wheels altered for rails.
Locomotive, 1850. In the twenty years between the top photograph and this one, locomotives started to take on a more familiar form, and they'd grown larger.
By 1860, in North America, they'd not only taken on a familiar form, but their rails now stretched throughout the settled East. In just 20 years the United States and Canada had gone from all roads and water ways to having an interconnected rail transportation system in the East. Railways had already become an inseparable part of North American life.
Locomotive in California, 1865.
And not only that, but a major undertaking in the United States would, as is well known, link the West and East by rail, in the Transcontinental Railway, where the two sections of the rail would join on May 10, 1869. Indeed, that accomplishment came in the context of an early example of the government sponsoring a business, something that we rarely think of occurring in the 19th Century, but which the Lincoln Administration, which got it started, recognized as a national need, or at least laudatory goal, that was beyond the means of private enterprise for a wide variety of reasons. The inducement in that 19th Century context involved the Federal government giving to the two building railroads what it had a lot of, land, with the railroad acquiring a swath of sections (square miles) across the path of their lines, which allowed them to have a certain economic payoff in the future, and which also accordingly encouraged the railroads to sponsor development. The railroads descendants today still retain much of that original grant along what had been the Transcontinental line.
As monumental achievement as that was, it was only the beginning in a seemingly ceaseless and relentless expansion of rail lines that would see rail penetrate nearly every section of the West by the mid 1880s. What had taken days to achieve before the rail lines came in, accordingly shrunk in time, sometimes to just hours. And rail continued to be put down relentlessly in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century in the U.S.
North of the border, in Canada, the Canadians would have a trans Canadian railway completed by 1885, linking the two coasts of a nation that still had not yet taken its full continental form, and which struggled with a national identity that really started to fully form about that time. Railways were being built all over Europe at the same time, of course, with national and trans European lines put down everywhere. The Russians achieved a monumental chore with the completion of the Trans Siberian in 1916, achieving what is arguably the greatest railroad in the world, but doing so only one year before the fall of the government that backed it. Railroad penetrated into China from Russia, and into Arabia from Turkey. The British built them in Africa and Australia. The trans Australia railway was completed in the midst of World War One, being completed in 1917, and bringing yet another example of continental expanses being closed by rail.
Railroads were the long distance land transportation of their era, and they dominated everything about it. By the 1860s they'd revolutionized the transportation of people and goods. Americans and Canadians were made into a continental people by the railroads, or at least more completely so, and the Russians could aspire to be the same. Australia, a nation whose unification was completed by World War One found its coasts united during it.
In the U.S, and Canada, an economy that was mostly local prior to 1860s ceased being so by the end of the Civil War, when railroads penetrated into Kansas, and for the first time goods, and perhaps more significantly beef, could be transported across the nation by rail car. A nation that had been principally a local pork consumer prior to 1865 in short order became a beef consuming nation, particularly as refrigerator rail cars came in about the same time. The great cattle drives that followed the Civil War, inspired in part by a huge increase in cattle in Texas during the war, were only made economically possible as the railheads had penetrated as far west as Kansas.
Refrigeration and rail also allowed the nation to have its first really national beverage company, Anhauser Busch, which made use of rail and refrigeration to ship beer all over the United States by the 1870s. A nation which before had tended to look for everything to be local, now became accustom to every sort of good being shipped across the nation, even something as routine as something to drink.
And rail was glamorous, and would in some ways always remain so. Certain trains, and even railroad men, became famous, and were celebrated in song. Casey Jones, a real railroad engineer, was for example celebrated in song for his dramatic effort to stop his train to stop his train to avoid a collision, and thereby save lives. Working on the railroad was celebrated by a song dedicated under that title.
Rail occupied and dominated long distance travel, and even intrastate travel, for decades and decades. Rails continued to expand in the country throughout the first half of the 20th Century and rail transportation was the critical national means of transportation throughout the first half of the 20th Century. When people traveled any distance at all, they normally traveled by rail. My father, for example, traveled from Casper Wyoming to Lincoln Nebraska, where he was attending university, by rail, not by car, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. U.S. troops were moved from coast to coat during World War One and World War Two by rail, not by truck as a rule, and not by plane. Railroad labor troubles during World War One were so disruptive to the war effort that the Federal government took over the rail lines during the war.
And the situation was largely the same in other nations. In Germany, the military was in control of the rail lines prior to World War One, and German mobilization was based on strict railroad timetables. The rail lines themselves became lines of combat in World War One, and to a certain extent World War Two, inside of Russia and the Russian civil war saw the odd use of armored trains, which made a reappearance in Soviet use during World War Two.
Rail came to not only serve towns and cities, of course, but to impact their features and even their locations. This is well known in the West, as towns competed to be railheads, which could spell the difference between economic isolation and elimination and prosperity. Locally, for example, Casper Wyoming beat out Bessemer Wyoming in these regards, meaning that Casper, which was established literally just days prior to the railroad entering Natrona County Wyoming would go on to become one of the largest cities in Wyoming and the county seat, while Bessemer passed away and is now a farm field.
This didn't happen all at once, of course, and in this late era, there were a series of efficient locomotives designed just for fast passenger service. Streamlined steam engines yielded to streamlined diesels, as the internal combustion engine began to take over the rails. But for most of the country, the 1950s and 60s would see the end of passenger train service. The only exceptions were in densely populated sections of the country were commuter rail hung on.
And, also in the 1950s, a new threat to rail arrived in the form of greatly improved highways, particularly the Interstate Highway system. With Federal funding for highways, under the guise of defense spending for highways designed to speed military mobilization, supposedly, tax funded highways provided a means for trucking companies to compete with privately owned raillines, albeit rail lines that had in some instances been put in with incentives, particularly land incentives, in the 19th Century. The new Interstates boosted the commercial trucking fleet enormously, and over the road trucks took over quite a bit of commercial hauling. Without having to pay for their "rails", and able to go anywhere there was pavement, the trucks were liberated from steel rails and could deliver more easily from port to port.
So, slowly in this same period freighting saw major inroads from trucking, with some sectors of shipping, such as livestock shipping, going over to trucks entirely. By the 1970s trains were no longer hauling, for the most part, mail, people, and livestock, as well as many other items. By the late 1990s tracks were being abandoned in some locations, and the old rail lines converted to walkways under "rails to trails" programs.
But rail is persistent, and in spite of the inroads it remains important to us today, even if its faded into a the background to such an extent we can hardly recognize it. It remains the heavy hauler for the nation, transporting good far more cheaply, and far more environmentally benign, to the extent that anything is, today, carrying more pounds per gallon of feul cheaply than any of its competitors. And in the expensive fuel world in which we've been recently living (but which seems to be potentially fading back out today), its seen a bit of a revival. New lines have been put in, in the West, where it remains vital for heavy hauling. Major coal hauling lines have been built, and even here locally a major petroleum loading hub was just constructed. In Denver, as in many other cities, a local light rail service for passengers has dramatically expanded, and it will soon run from Union Station to the Denver airport. Rail hasn't yielded easily, and even in North America, the domain of the automobile, it has kept on.
Massive Union Pacific railyard in Laramie Wyoming, a town built on the Union Pacific.
North of the border, in Canada, the Canadians would have a trans Canadian railway completed by 1885, linking the two coasts of a nation that still had not yet taken its full continental form, and which struggled with a national identity that really started to fully form about that time. Railways were being built all over Europe at the same time, of course, with national and trans European lines put down everywhere. The Russians achieved a monumental chore with the completion of the Trans Siberian in 1916, achieving what is arguably the greatest railroad in the world, but doing so only one year before the fall of the government that backed it. Railroad penetrated into China from Russia, and into Arabia from Turkey. The British built them in Africa and Australia. The trans Australia railway was completed in the midst of World War One, being completed in 1917, and bringing yet another example of continental expanses being closed by rail.
Railroads were the long distance land transportation of their era, and they dominated everything about it. By the 1860s they'd revolutionized the transportation of people and goods. Americans and Canadians were made into a continental people by the railroads, or at least more completely so, and the Russians could aspire to be the same. Australia, a nation whose unification was completed by World War One found its coasts united during it.
Former Union Pacific Depot in Cheyenne Wyoming, on the line of the original Transcontinental Railroad.
Refrigeration and rail also allowed the nation to have its first really national beverage company, Anhauser Busch, which made use of rail and refrigeration to ship beer all over the United States by the 1870s. A nation which before had tended to look for everything to be local, now became accustom to every sort of good being shipped across the nation, even something as routine as something to drink.
And rail was glamorous, and would in some ways always remain so. Certain trains, and even railroad men, became famous, and were celebrated in song. Casey Jones, a real railroad engineer, was for example celebrated in song for his dramatic effort to stop his train to stop his train to avoid a collision, and thereby save lives. Working on the railroad was celebrated by a song dedicated under that title.
Rail occupied and dominated long distance travel, and even intrastate travel, for decades and decades. Rails continued to expand in the country throughout the first half of the 20th Century and rail transportation was the critical national means of transportation throughout the first half of the 20th Century. When people traveled any distance at all, they normally traveled by rail. My father, for example, traveled from Casper Wyoming to Lincoln Nebraska, where he was attending university, by rail, not by car, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. U.S. troops were moved from coast to coat during World War One and World War Two by rail, not by truck as a rule, and not by plane. Railroad labor troubles during World War One were so disruptive to the war effort that the Federal government took over the rail lines during the war.
And the situation was largely the same in other nations. In Germany, the military was in control of the rail lines prior to World War One, and German mobilization was based on strict railroad timetables. The rail lines themselves became lines of combat in World War One, and to a certain extent World War Two, inside of Russia and the Russian civil war saw the odd use of armored trains, which made a reappearance in Soviet use during World War Two.
Rail came to not only serve towns and cities, of course, but to impact their features and even their locations. This is well known in the West, as towns competed to be railheads, which could spell the difference between economic isolation and elimination and prosperity. Locally, for example, Casper Wyoming beat out Bessemer Wyoming in these regards, meaning that Casper, which was established literally just days prior to the railroad entering Natrona County Wyoming would go on to become one of the largest cities in Wyoming and the county seat, while Bessemer passed away and is now a farm field.
This meant that any significant town, and even many insignificant ones, had rail lines and features associated with them, such as depots. But now often missed, and often now neglected, it also mean that a towns hotels, including its best hotels, were typically within walking distance of a railroad depot. The same was true of anything requiring shipping of anything heavy.
Parco Hotel, in Sinclair Wyoming. Just a block or two from the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad. This hotel is no longer an operating hotel.
Consider then the state of the railroads in relation to nearly every society, just after World War Two. Troops who had gone to training stations by rail and then to points of embarkation by rail, came home largely by rail. All materials of any significant nature, except for short hauls as a rule, were moved by rail, with perhaps the only exceptions being intrastate hauling and oil and gas pipelines. People traveling from one city to another traveled by rail.
World War Two era poster urging people not to travel if it wasn't necessary. This photo shows the inside of a packed train car.
But then, something began to happen to rail, and that something was two things really. The Interstate Highways and Air Travel.
Air travel changed everything about how Americans, and ultimately everyone else in the developed world, thought about traveling long distances. Acclimated to long trips by train as a rule, planes became an option. Expensive at first, as time went on traveling by air became more and more affordable, particularly when the time element was considered. Even by the early 1950s air travel was displacing train travel. Businessmen started traveling by air. The military switched from shipping men locally from their duty station to another duty station by train, to air. Ultimately air became so efficient, that it displaced the train as a fast mail carrier for letters and small packages, with that becoming so efficient that large sections of that business were wholly privatized.
Western Airlines airliner, Casper Wyoming, early 1950s. Sailor is boarding aircraft. This scene says a lot about the change after World War Two, as this airport was built as an Army Air Corps training base during World War Two, with enormous runways. Post war, it became an international airport, replacing the much smaller local airport that had existed up until that time.
This didn't happen all at once, of course, and in this late era, there were a series of efficient locomotives designed just for fast passenger service. Streamlined steam engines yielded to streamlined diesels, as the internal combustion engine began to take over the rails. But for most of the country, the 1950s and 60s would see the end of passenger train service. The only exceptions were in densely populated sections of the country were commuter rail hung on.
And, also in the 1950s, a new threat to rail arrived in the form of greatly improved highways, particularly the Interstate Highway system. With Federal funding for highways, under the guise of defense spending for highways designed to speed military mobilization, supposedly, tax funded highways provided a means for trucking companies to compete with privately owned raillines, albeit rail lines that had in some instances been put in with incentives, particularly land incentives, in the 19th Century. The new Interstates boosted the commercial trucking fleet enormously, and over the road trucks took over quite a bit of commercial hauling. Without having to pay for their "rails", and able to go anywhere there was pavement, the trucks were liberated from steel rails and could deliver more easily from port to port.
So, slowly in this same period freighting saw major inroads from trucking, with some sectors of shipping, such as livestock shipping, going over to trucks entirely. By the 1970s trains were no longer hauling, for the most part, mail, people, and livestock, as well as many other items. By the late 1990s tracks were being abandoned in some locations, and the old rail lines converted to walkways under "rails to trails" programs.
Pedestrian path in Casper Wyoming, converted from the line of the Great Northwestern Railroad. Old depot on the right, now an office building.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small B...
Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small B...: Saturday, November 29, is National Small Business Saturday, a holiday, of sorts, oddly enough thought up American Express. This follow...Since posting this I've been impressed by the seemingly endless series of days that follow Thanksgiving, dedicated or observed in some informal fashion. The sales frenzy following Thanksgiving is, of course, Black Friday. Then we have now National Small Business Saturday. I'd forgotten that the following Monday is Cyber Monday, but saw reporting on it, on the news, yesterday. And today is apparently something like C heritable Tuesday. An interesting series of competing, or perhaps compatible, forces at work there.
The Raging Debate, looking back on Lex Anteinternet: Standards of Dress: Office, city and town wear ov...
Some time ago I posted this item on daily dress of, I suppose, yore:
Lex Anteinternet: Standards of Dress: Office, city and town wear ov...: A motivational poster from the 1920s. By modern standards, nearly any city worker would "look the part", even if they didn&#...
Since that time I've read an interesting debate, often quite heated, about modern "standards of dress". This particular debate was centered on what people should wear, or do wear, to church. It was interesting in that some people strongly argue for a heightened standard, and others maintain that it doesn't matter at all.
One of the most interesting comments I saw was from an engineer, who in the debate maintained that there was no need to dress in any special way to attend church, and that a person was better off not attempting to do so if their clothes were in any way older or ill fitting, but then admitted he'd recently testified as an expert witness in a trial and of course had dressed the part. He wanted to look professional, while maintaining in his daily profession, he of course didn't dress that way.
That's sort of interesting in that it shows a retained concept that in certain places there's a standard of dress we must meet, even if there's no formal enforcement of it. However, at the same time, it suggests that we can skip the standard in places were otherwise fully acclimated and comfortable with, while perhaps in an earlier era, the standard was the standard.
Now, I'll note that I don't wear a suit, to be sure, most days and I'm really only commenting in general. I don't wear a coat and tie to Mass either. But I do think that suggests that even now there actually is a standard in people's minds.
It's also interesting to read where people think that standard is enforced, which is usually somewhere else. In reading the comments, many people think that "only lawyers" dress that way, which of course isn't true any way you look at it. Others have other occupations they believe dress in a certain fashion. Everyone, somehow, is acclimated to broadcast newsmen dressing in that fashion, which is curious as originally they were only dressing to the standard of the day. One person believed only Hipsters dressed in that fashion, which is really curious. I don't know if Hipsters dress in ties or not, I meet so few, but its interesting that in the minds of at least some, the trendy wear ties.
Another interesting thing about this is how deeply some people feel about this topic. I suspect most don't, but some really do. Those who feel that a certain standard of dress should be met in various settings, or the equivalent for females, are really adamant about it. Oddly, those who feel strongly the opposite are also really adamant about that too. Some feel that anyone arguing for a standard of any kind, any where, is some sort of fascist, and others who feel the opposite feel just as strongly about their views. Those who argue for no standard are steadfast in their refusal to recognize that society in general is going to recognize a standard, like it or not, even if they themselves do in fact recognize it in their own conduct.
Another interesting thing about this is how deeply some people feel about this topic. I suspect most don't, but some really do. Those who feel that a certain standard of dress should be met in various settings, or the equivalent for females, are really adamant about it. Oddly, those who feel strongly the opposite are also really adamant about that too. Some feel that anyone arguing for a standard of any kind, any where, is some sort of fascist, and others who feel the opposite feel just as strongly about their views. Those who argue for no standard are steadfast in their refusal to recognize that society in general is going to recognize a standard, like it or not, even if they themselves do in fact recognize it in their own conduct.
All of which means nothing in particular, really. Just interesting to see how this is viewed.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Water Transportation
After walking, but only barely, and before the horse, there were the rivers and streams. And the oceans.
And they were the highways.
And they were the highways.
Recently, I posted a thread on equine transportation. Sometimes it will be claimed that, before the train, nothing moved faster than the horse. That is very true, but with qualifiers. Horses can cross streams, and they can swim too, but they're limited in these regards. Beyond that, even with a horse, the rider is working more than non riders suppose. Indeed, riding a horse, particularly riding a horse the way working riders ride them, is pretty good exercise. One old infantry general of the 20th Century noted that cavalry officers outlived infantry officers, which he attributed to their constant riding.
And of course one horse can only carry so much.
But water is different. One boat, even one canoe, can carry quite a bit, and for efficient transportation, water courses are hard to beat, as long as the water goes where you also want to go.
In our paved and engineered world of today, water transportation isn't really appreciated. People who want to go from North Platte Nebraska to St. Louis would not think of trying that by canoe, and people who wanted to go from St. Louis to the Pacific would look at the Interstate Highway routes, not the watercourses. But that wasn't always so.
I'll confess that, unlike walking, which I like to do, and unlike horses, which I like, I'm not a huge fan of watercraft, and for that reason, even though I know that rivers were the highways of antiquity, this is a historical topic I'm not really that familiar with, or even interested in. But the purpose of this blog is to explore the past as it really was, not as we'd have it, and therefore this matters in this context. And, while the only boat I own is a canoe, and that's the only boat I want to own, perhaps this is more interesting that I figure it is. So let's take a look.
The boats of antiquity were undoubtedly canoes or boats that we can regard as canoes. Crude compared to the Old Town canoe that you would look at over at the sporting goods store, their efficiency and utility is demonstrated by the fact that they're still with us, and like the horse, even though most of us don't require them for the outback, a lot of us like them. I like mine for that matter.
Canoes are fun, and apparently the temptation to take a photograph from one has been around for a long time.
Canoes have existed pretty much in every culture, everywhere. Whether they were burnt out or dug out logs, or manufactured with hide and frame, the canoe is basically boat 1.0, and it's hard to replace. Whether made of wood, fiberglass, or aluminum, the basic canoe is still pretty much the basic canoe. And that applies to what are basically canoes 2.0, the kayak, as well.
Canoes in antiquity served to move people over long distances. Whole tribes of people moved hundreds of miles on rivers via canoes, and really bold folks took ocean going varieties distances that would scare most of us, for good reason. In our country, the canoe was the basic vehicle of the fur market for a long time. Indian tribes had them and used them, and so did fur trappers. It's popular to imagine the trapper riding from St. Louis, or Quebec, to the Rocky Mountains, but they didn't do that. They rowed upstream, hard work, but efficient, and traded for horses when they got where they were going. When they turned around to go the other direction, they traded the horse away and floated downstream.
Outrigger canoe on Maui, the early variants of which took the Polynesians clean across the Pacific.
As technology improved, boats did too of course, and all manners of boats were developed over time. It was a long time before rivers ceased to be highways. In Medieval England the rivers were the highways, and while the well to do had horses, they were very limited by the vast quantity of water that Great Britain features. To really get somewhere, for a long time, you took the boat. Chances are that you leased a boat from somebody whose occupation that was. The water taxi, has a long origin.
And if you were taking goods to market, you probably took them by boat, at least if they were substantial in quantity. Packing goods in no doubt occurred, but floating them in is easier. And so it was in our own country for much of its history. River ports were very important means of transporting every manner of goods, and to some extent, on truly major rivers, they still are.
But not like they once were. Consider that in 1876, when the Army engaged in its famous summer (stretching into fall) campaign on the Northern Plains, part of the Army went by boat. We don't think of it that way, but the River boat The Far West went all the way up the Yellowstone River. It was, indeed, a specially designed shallow bottom river boat made for traveling the shallow rivers of the west, with a gin pole that allowed it to muscle its way past or over shallow shoals. Cavalrymen charging into the Little Big Horn valley that summer were attired in part in straw boaters, brought upstream and sold by a trader on the Yellowstone. Nothing plies the Yellowstone commercially today.
And so efficient was inland travel by water that artificial watercourses were created everywhere. They were the highways of their day. Interior canals for transportation were created right up to the railroad days in Europe, when the railroads suddenly made them obsolete. In this US, this was done to some extent as well, with some still in use. The most famous of all American canals, and one of the most important in our history, amazingly remains in use, having been enlarged and improved over, time. That canal inspired a song that remains in The American Songbook.
But not like they once were. Consider that in 1876, when the Army engaged in its famous summer (stretching into fall) campaign on the Northern Plains, part of the Army went by boat. We don't think of it that way, but the River boat The Far West went all the way up the Yellowstone River. It was, indeed, a specially designed shallow bottom river boat made for traveling the shallow rivers of the west, with a gin pole that allowed it to muscle its way past or over shallow shoals. Cavalrymen charging into the Little Big Horn valley that summer were attired in part in straw boaters, brought upstream and sold by a trader on the Yellowstone. Nothing plies the Yellowstone commercially today.
And so efficient was inland travel by water that artificial watercourses were created everywhere. They were the highways of their day. Interior canals for transportation were created right up to the railroad days in Europe, when the railroads suddenly made them obsolete. In this US, this was done to some extent as well, with some still in use. The most famous of all American canals, and one of the most important in our history, amazingly remains in use, having been enlarged and improved over, time. That canal inspired a song that remains in The American Songbook.
The Erie Canal crossing the Genosee River, by bridge. 1900.
I've got an old mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
We've hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay
And every inch of the way we know
From Albany to Buffalo
Chorus:
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal
We'd better look 'round for a job old gal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
'Cause you bet your life I'd never part with Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
Git up there mule, here comes a lock
We'll make Rome 'bout six o'clock
One more trip and back we'll go
Right back home to Buffalo
Chorus
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal
Oh, where would I be if I lost my pal?
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
Oh, I'd like to see a mule as good as Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
A friend of mine once got her sore
Now he's got a busted jaw,
'Cause she let fly with her iron toe,
And kicked him in to Buffalo.
Chorus
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal
Don't have to call when I want my Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
She trots from her stall like a good old gal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
I eat my meals with Sal each day
I eat beef and she eats hay
And she ain't so slow if you want to know
She put the "Buff" in Buffalo
Chorus
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal
This all deals, of course, with interior transport, where waterways were once incredibly important. They still are, of course, and barges and even ships still run everyday on the nation's most significant rivers. But this hasn't dealt with external transport, i.e., ocean going ships.
Ocean going ships remain the most important factor, rather obviously, in international trade. Anything of any significance, except people, tends to nearly always go by ship if it has any size to it at all. Prior to transoceanic air travel, everything in international commerce went by ship, including people. The importance of the oceans to commerce has been so vast that it's formed a primary focus of international law and national diplomacy. Being a seafaring nation, whether we think of ourselves that way or not, we've been in the forefront of keeping sea lanes open from day one. We may like to think that we stayed out of other countries affairs up until World War Two forced us on t the international stage, but this isn't so. We went to war when the country was in its infancy against local forces out of Algiers over the issue of freedom of the seas. We fought a naval small scale spat with the Japanese while we were fighting each other in the Civil War. We indeed "opened" Japan, and as is being explored in the 1870 to 1918 blog we dabbled in Hawaiian affairs pretty darned early. So, even as an infant nation, we plied the seas internationally and would fight over the right to do so when we felt we had a right to do so. We did just that in World War One, when we were horrified by German unrestricted submarine warfare, the German decision that may have resulted in the loss of the war for the Germans, and the downfall of the German Empire.
Troop ship, World War One. This ship is an ocean liner, at one time the basic means, and in fact the only means, of getting across the Atlantic or Pacific. Now, they're really a thing of the past, replaced by "cruise ships" which are similar, but which are taken in part for the experience itself.
The importance of the oceans to commerce, while still vast, didn't diminish at all until after World War Two, when for the very first time commercial air travel started up. Moving at first people and mail, commercial air travel expanded into packages and even larger items, and now occupies the field in transporting people, who would rather endure a flight of hours rather than weeks or days. Who could blame them? But what's interesting about that, while it is a huge change, it also means that on the oceans, less has been changed by technology, no matter how advanced it may have become, than perhaps in other areas that we've discussed. Certainly modern transportation has cut down on continental port to port shipping, but on the high seas, ships still dominate over anything else.
The technology has certainly changed, and massively. And quickly as well. Sailing vessels remained a viable commercial ship, with augmented coal fired steam engines, well into the 20th Century. The largest of these ships ever built, the massive six masted schooner Wyoming, was launched in 1909, not even a century ago. It tragically broke up in heavy seas in 1924. As late as the 1940s some vessels of this type, although smaller, still sailed.
The technology has certainly changed, and massively. And quickly as well. Sailing vessels remained a viable commercial ship, with augmented coal fired steam engines, well into the 20th Century. The largest of these ships ever built, the massive six masted schooner Wyoming, was launched in 1909, not even a century ago. It tragically broke up in heavy seas in 1924. As late as the 1940s some vessels of this type, although smaller, still sailed.
The Wyoming.
By that time, and indeed for quite some time prior, big ocean going steam powered ships had become common, so ships like the Wyoming and other fast clipper ships seem to be an anachronism, even if they were not. But the big ship era had really taken over, and had been a strong presence for quite some time by then. For commercial shipping, they've grown even larger, with current commercial ships being unbelievably large. As noted, they don't move very many people, however, and indeed a modern ocean going ship has a crew so small its almost unbelievable. Oil tankers, for example, just have a handful of crewmen. Only fighting ships and cruise ships have significant numbers of crewmen.
So, here we have the second oldest means of getting around still being one of the most important. As an average person, you aren't too likely to take a boat somewhere because you need to, unless its a ferry to cross a river, or something of the kind. But they're still hugely significant commercially, and as present as ever. And like horses, our association with them is so strong, we still cling to them, naturally, for enjoyment.
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Related Threads.
Horsepower
Riding Bicycles
Walking
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Related Threads.
Horsepower
Riding Bicycles
Walking
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