Early Horse Trailer

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Courage

This is another one of those trailing threads.  This one is on courage.

I actually have a distinct reason for posting these, which I'm not really going to go into.  But it comes up in the context of somebody actually telling me, in an odd particular situation, to my surprise "you're courageous."  The statement was genuinely made, and much appreciated, but it's incorrect.  In that matter, at that particular time, I was doing something that I had no other choice but to do, or so I felt.  I replied that "No, I'm not.  I have no choice on this matter.  Courage implies a choice."  In retrospect, I did have a choice, which would have involved a pretty strong element of deception, to include self deception, but I don't care for deception.  Honesty isn't really the same thing as courage, but perhaps a person has to be honest with themselves to have genuine courage.

Anyhow, the term "courage" like that of "hero" is grossly overused these days.  It upsets people to note it, but I'll see, for example, popular citations to a persons "heroic battle with" or "courageous fight against" in those circumstances in which the writer often means nothing more than that the person was afflicted by some terrible tragedy, or present in one. That's not necessarily courage, so much as it is resignation or acceptance, or simply bad luck.  Anyhow, some statements regarding courage, which I think are noteworthy.

On these, I think Rickenbacker is particularly correct.  There can, really, be no courage without fear.   To be courageous implies fear.  It isn't absence of fear that makes a person courageous, it's the overwhelming presence of it.

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Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill

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 It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

 E.E. Cummings

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Courage is grace under pressure.”

Ernest Hemingway

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I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

Harper Lee, in the voice of Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird
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I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Nelson Mandela

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Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

George Patton

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Courage is doing what your afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.

Eddie Rickenbacker

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Courage is found in unlikely places.

J.R.R. Tolkien

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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

Mark Twain

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Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.

John Wayne


Courage is doing what your afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.

Eddie Rickenbacker

Today In Wyoming's History: June 6

Today In Wyoming's History: June 6: 

Quite a day in history.

June 6

1886  Douglas Budget founded.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1892  Information filed in State of Wyoming v. Alexander Adamson, et al. Murder in the First Degree, chargng Alexander Adamson, William E. Guthrie, William Armstrong and J. A. Garrett with the murder of Rueben "Nick" Ray during the Johnson County War.  This was a criminal charge filed in Johnson County, as opposed to Laramie County where the charges stemming from the Johnson County War.

1894  In the reverse of the usual story, Colorado's Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support tminers engaged in a strike at Cripple Creek.  Mine owners had already formed private army.

1908  A man from Cody Wyoming was the co-winner of the Evanston Wyoming to Denver horse race, one of the long distance horse races that were common in Wyoming at the time.

1912  President Taft signs the Homestead Act of 1912, which reduces the period to "prove up" from five years to three.  This was unknowingly on the eve of a major boom in homesteading, as World War One would create a huge demand for wheat for export, followed by the largest number of homestead filings in American history as would be wheat farmers attempted to gain land for the endeavor.  Attribution:  On This Day. 

Wheat farmer, Billings Montana.

1915  British commissioners began to purchase remounts in Wyoming.  The purchase of horses for British service in World War One created a boom in horse ranching which would continue, fueled both by British and American service purchases, throughout the war, but which would be followed by a horse ranching crash after the war.

 U.S. Army Remounts, Camp Kearney California, 1917.

1944 Allied forces land in Normandy, in an event remembered as "D-Day", although that term actually refers to the day on which any major operation commences.  This is not, of course, a Wyoming event, but at least in my youth I knew more than one Wyoming native who had participated in it.  Later, I had a junior high teacher whose first husband had died in it.  A law school colleague of mine had a father who was a paratrooper in it.  And at least one well known Wyoming political figure, Teno Roncolio, participated in it.  From the prospective of the Western Allies, it might be the single most significant single day of the campaign in Europe.

All the photos above are courtesy of the United States Army.

1948  President  Truman delivered a speech from the Governor's Mansion's porch in Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.  He stated:

Governor Hunt, and citizens of Wyoming:

It certainly is a very great privilege and a pleasure for me to be here today. I received an invitation from Governor Hunt to call on him this afternoon, and I was most happy to accept it. I have known him a long time, and I like him, and I think he is a good Governor.

I have always been very much interested in this great city. I was here while the war was going on in my official capacity as chairman of an investigating committee to look after some construction that was going on here. And I found nothing wrong.

I hope sometime I can come back and be able to discuss the issues before the country with you. I always make it a rule never to make speeches of any kind on Sunday. I don't think it's the proper day for speeches that are not of a religious character, and since I am not a Doctor of Divinity, I can't preach you a sermon.

But I do appreciate most highly the cordiality of your welcome. It is a pleasure for me to get to see you, and it is a privilege for me to stop in Cheyenne long enough to call on your Governor.

Again, I hope that when I come here I can talk to you straight from the shoulder on certain things that confront this country.

[At this point the President was presented with an invitation and a hat. He then resumed speaking.]

Thank you very much. The invitation says, "Mr. President, your many friends in Cheyenne, Wyoming, will be greatly honored if you can attend the Cheyenne Frontier Day, July 27-31st, 1948." I have always wanted to do that, and I hope some day I will be able to do it.

Now I am going to see just how this hat works. [Putting it on.] That's all right.

Text of Speech courtesy of Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office.

Boy Scouts of America--Merit Badges from 1911

From:   http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29558/29558-h/29558-h.htm

Interesting to note the various agricultural and rural related merit badges from a century ago.

Agriculture

To obtain a merit badge for Agriculture a scout must

1. State different tests with grains.

2. Grow at least an acre of corn which produces 25 per cent. better than the general average.

3. Be able to identify and describe common weeds of the community and tell how best to eliminate them.

4. Be able to identify the common insects and tell how best to handle them.

5. Have a practical knowledge of plowing, cultivating, drilling, hedging, and draining.

6. Have a working knowledge of farm machinery, haymaking, reaping, loading, and stacking.

7. Have a general acquaintance of the routine seasonal work on the farm, including the care of cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs.

8. Have a knowledge of Campbell's Soil Culture principle, and a knowledge of dry farming and of irrigation farming.

Angling

To obtain a merit badge for Angling a scout must

1. Catch and name ten different species of fish: salmon or trout to be taken with flies; bass, pickerel, or pike to be caught with rod or reel, muskallonge to be caught by trolling.

2. Make a bait rod of three joints, straight and sound, 14 oz. or less in weight, 10 feet or less in length, to stand a strain of 1-1/2 lbs. at the tip, 13 lbs. at the grip.

3. Make a jointed fly-rod 8-10 feet long, 4-8 ozs. in weight, capable of casting a fly sixty feet.

4. Name and describe twenty-five different species of fish found in North American waters and give a complete list of the fishes ascertained by himself to inhabit a given body of water.

5. Give the history of the young of any species of wild fish from the time of hatching until the adult stage is reached.

Automobiling

To obtain a merit badge for Automobiling a scout must

1. Demonstrate how to start a motor, explaining what precautions should be taken.

2. Take off and put on pneumatic tires.

3. Know the functions of the clutch, carburetor, valves, magneto, spark plug, differential cam shaft, and different speed gears, and be able to explain difference between a two and four-cycle motor.

4. Know how to put out burning gasoline or oil.

5. Have satisfactorily passed the requirements to receive a license to operate an automobile in the community in which he lives.

Aviation

To obtain a merit badge for Aviation a scout must

1. Have a knowledge of the theory of aeroplanes, balloons, and dirigibles.

2. Have made a working model of an {27} aeroplane or dirigible that will fly at least twenty-five yards; and have built a box kite that will fly.

3. Have a knowledge of the engines used for aeroplanes and dirigibles, and be able to describe the various types of aeroplanes and their records.

Bee Farming

To obtain a merit badge for Bee Farming a scout must

1. Have a practical knowledge of swarming, hiving, hives and general apiculture, including a knowledge of the use of artificial combs.

2. Describe different kinds of honey and tell from what sources gathered.

Blacksmithing

To obtain a merit badge for Blacksmithing a scout must

1. Upset and weld a one-inch iron rod.

2. Make a horseshoe.

3. Know how to tire a wheel, use a sledge-hammer and forge, shoe a horse correctly and roughshoe a horse.

4. Be able to temper iron and steel.

Bugling

To obtain a merit badge for Bugling a scout must

1. Be able to sound properly on the Bugle the customary United States Army calls.

Business

To obtain a merit badge for Business a scout must

1. Write a satisfactory business, and a personal letter.

2. State fundamental principles of buying and selling.

3. Know simple bookkeeping.

4. Keep a complete and actual account of personal receipts and expenditures for six months.
{28}
5. State how much money would need to be invested at 5 per cent. to earn his weekly allowance of spending money for a year.

Conservation

To obtain a merit badge for Conservation a scout must
1. Be able to recognize in the forest all important commercial trees in his neighborhood; distinguish the lumber from each and tell for what purpose each is best suited; tell the age of old blazes on trees which mark a boundary or trail; recognize the difference in the forest between good and bad logging, giving reasons why one is good and another bad; tell whether a tree is dying from injury by fire, by insects, by disease or by a combination of these causes; know what tools to use, and how to fight fires in hilly or in flat country. Collect the seeds of two commercial trees, clean and store them, and know how and when to plant them.
2. Know the effect upon stream-flow of the destruction of forests at head waters; know what are the four great uses of water in streams; what causes the pollution of streams, and how it can best be stopped; and how, in general, water power is developed.
3. Be able to tell, for a given piece of farm land, whether it is best suited for use as farm or forest, and why; point out examples of erosion, and tell how to stop it; give the reasons why a growing crop pointed out to him is successful or why not; and tell what crops should be grown in his neighborhood and why.
4. Know where the great coal fields are situated and whether the use of coal is increasing, and if so at what rate. Tell what are the great sources of waste of coal, in the mines, and in its use, and how they can be reduced.
5. Know the principal game birds and animals in his neighborhood, the seasons during which they are protected, the methods of protection, and the results. Recognize the track of any two of the following: rabbit, fox, deer, squirrel, wild turkey, ruffed grouse and quail.

Cycling

To obtain a merit badge for Cycling a scout must
1. Be able to ride a bicycle fifty miles in ten hours.
2. Repair a puncture.
3. Take apart and clean bicycle and put together again properly.
4. Know how to make reports if sent out scouting on a road.
5. Be able to read a map and report correctly verbal messages.

Dairying

To obtain a merit badge for Dairying a scout must
1. Understand the management of dairy cattle.
2. Be able to milk.
3. Understand the sterilization of milk, and care of dairy utensils and appliances.
{32} 4. Test at least five cows for ten days each, with the Babcock test, and make proper reports.

First Aid to Animals

To obtain a merit badge for First Aid to Animals a scout must
1. Have a general knowledge of domestic and farm animals.
2. Be able to treat a horse for colic.
3. Describe symptoms and give treatment for the following: wounds, fractures and sprains, exhaustion, choking, lameness.
4. Understand horseshoeing.

Forestry

To obtain a merit badge for Forestry a scout must
1. Be able to identify twenty-five kinds of trees when in leaf, or fifteen kinds of deciduous (broad leaf) trees in winter, and tell some of the uses of each.
2. Identify twelve kinds of shrubs.
3. Collect and identify samples of ten kinds of wood and be able to tell some of their uses.
4. Determine the height, and estimate the amount of timber, approximately, in five trees of different sizes.
{34} 5. State laws for transplanting, grafting, spraying, and protecting trees.

Gardening

To obtain a merit badge for Gardening, a scout must
1. Dig and care for during the season a piece of ground containing not less than 144 square feet.
2. Know the names of a dozen plants pointed out in an ordinary garden.
3. Understand what is meant by pruning, grafting, and manuring.
4. Plant and grow successfully six kinds of vegetables or flowers from seeds or cuttings.
5. Cut grass with scythe under supervision.

Horsemanship

To obtain a merit badge for Horsemanship a scout must
1. Demonstrate riding at a walk, trot, and gallop.
2. Know how to saddle and bridle a horse correctly.
3. Know how to water and feed and to what amount, and how to groom a horse properly.
{35} 4. Know how to harness a horse correctly in single or double harness and to drive.
5. Have a knowledge of the power of endurance of horses at work and know the local regulations concerning driving.
6. Know the management and care of horses.
7. Be able to identify unsoundness and blemishes.
8. Know the evils of bearing or check reins and of ill-fitting harness or saddlery.
9. Know two common causes of, and proper remedies for, lameness, and know to whom he should refer cases of cruelty and abuse.
10. Be able to judge as to the weight, height, and age of horses; know three breeds and their general characteristics.

Marksmanship

To obtain a merit badge for Marksmanship a scout must
1. Qualify as a marksman in accordance with the regulations of the National Rifle Association.

Poultry Farming

To obtain a merit badge for Poultry Farming a scout must
1. Have a knowledge of incubators, foster-mothers, sanitary fowl houses, and coops and runs.
2. Understand rearing, feeding, killing, and dressing birds for market.
3. Be able to pack birds and eggs for market.
4. Raise a brood of not less than ten chickens.
5. Report his observation and study of the hen, turkey, duck, and goose.

 

Stalking

To obtain a merit badge for Stalking a scout must
1. Take a series of twenty photographs of wild animals or birds from life, and develop and print them.
2. Make a group of sixty species of wild flowers, ferns, or grasses, dried and mounted in a book and correctly named.
3. Make colored drawings of twenty flowers, ferns, or grasses, or twelve sketches from life of animals or birds, original sketches as well as the finished pictures to be submitted.

Wyoming Adopts the Uniform Bar Exam, and why that's not only a change, but a bad idea

 

 Wyoming Supreme Court in  Cheyenne.

Students of legal minutia know that the phrase "to pass the bar", or "to be called to the bar", refers to an actual physical feature in an English courtroom.  Indeed, it's a feature in American courtrooms today. Courtrooms have a "bar", basically a fence, that separates the gallery from where the litigants and their lawyers, and the judge and the jury, sit during a trial.  When lawyers were admitted to practice, back in antiquity, they were "called to the bar" and allowed to "pass" it.  That is, their admission to practice meant that they were part of the privileged few who were allowed to open the gate and walk through, if they did not as a litigant.  

How a person "passes" the bar has differed over the years, but it's always involved some course of study, either through a law school or under the tutelage of a lawyer, and a species of examination by the court to which the applicant proposes to practice.  In the United States, as we're a federated republic, each state has controlled that process since there was a country.  Prior to that, each colony did.  So, for example, a lawyer in 1700's Virginia could not freely practice in 1700's New York, which  is equally true of Virginia and New York today.  You have to pass the state's bar.  The sole exception is probably found in patent law, which has its own bar, with that bar being a Federal one.

States have had different systems, as noted, for admitting new lawyers to practice, but starting in the late 19th Century the American Bar Association undertook a major effort to improve the professionalism of the practice of law, and as part of that it came to certify law schools.  In many states, such as Wyoming, admission to the bar came to normally require graduation from an ABA certified law school combined with a Bar Examination.  The Bar Examination examined the applicamt on the law of the state.  Wyoming's Bar Exam, for example, has always featured state specific topics, although it has featured some national ones too.  Like most states, Wyoming has also required passage of the Multi State Bar Exam, which is a national test that tests on either national topics or general concepts of law.

This has now passed away in Wyoming. The current Bar Commissioners have adopted, and the  Wyoming Supreme Court has approved, adoption of the Uniform Bar Exam in Wyoming. This is a terrible idea.  It's not too late for the State Bar to correct its error, and I hope that it does, although reversing a bad administrative decision is never easy.

The Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) is a national test.  Wyoming's adoption of it means that Wyoming has joined handful of states that will use this exam rather than create one of their own.  No Wyoming specific topics will be tested at all.  None.  In order to gain admission beyond that, an applicant need only to take a CLE on Wyoming's law.

The sole purpose of a bar exam is to provide protection to the public.  Passage of a bar exam in any state means that the passing lawyers are deemed competent to represent clients in that state, but nowhere else.  As Wyoming has a self administering state bar, overseen by the Wyoming Supreme Court, passage of the bar here has been a representation by the State Bar and the Wyoming Supreme Court that those passing the exam are deemed competent to represent Wyomingites, in Wyoming, in Wyoming’s Court, under Wyoming’s law.  Passage of the UBE, with a mere CLE on Wyoming’s law, hardly provides that security as admission to Wyoming’s bar will now completely omit any testing on Wyoming’s law.  And Wyoming's law is highly unique in a number of areas. Wyoming is the only state to use Comparative Fault, as opposed to Comparative Negligence, in tort cases. Wyoming's law on oil and gas tort indemnification is unique.  Wyoming's water law is unique.  I don't know much about the state's criminal law, but to the extent I've had to become familiar with it from time to time in the past, it's been unique. Worker Compensation in Wyoming, a state administered system, is unique.  Our oil and gas law is unique.  Now, thanks the the UBE, the student can safely be that none of this will show up on an examination, and that rater the student will be tested on general concepts, whether nor not they are applicable here, and on general topics, with the old Wyoming specific topics gone.

That this is a bad idea would seem to be self evident in light of the effort, just one year ago, to require new Wyoming lawyers to be adopted by a “mentor”, who would oversee their work for a year and tutor them on the nuts and bolts of practice.  At that time it was thought that new lawyers were so ill prepared to practice law in Wyoming that they were effectively incompetent to do so without the tutelage of a local practicing attorney.  Now the State Bar proposes to let lawyers practice without their even having been tested on Wyoming law.

I should note that there still seems to be some concern that the University of Wyoming’s College of Law is not preparing students to take the Bar Exam, given recent low passage rates, and that this seems to be a silent means of addressing that.  Most applicants to practice in Wyoming, although certainly not all, are graduates of the University of Wyoming.  Indeed, it used to be regarded as a real advantage to admission here to have attended law school here.  In recent years, however, there has been a noted decline in pass rates at the Bar Exam, and the law school itself has indicated that its moving towards not really attempting to teach Wyoming's law.  Indeed, that has been the case in some areas, such as torts, for a very long time. But students who were aiming to practice in Wyoming generally made sure to take Wyoming specific courses, such as Oil & Gas and Water Law.  Water Law actually disappeared from the bar exam a year or so again, perhaps indicting the general direction that things were headed in.   The general attitude now somewhat seems to be that the College of Law does not attempt to teach Wyoming specific topics, and therefore the Bar Exam should likewise omit them.  The thought seems to be that if Wyoming topics are entirely removed, therefore, that passage rates will climb thus essentially allowing failure to dictate what should be tested rather than taught.  Whether that is the case or not, and whether or not that is the impetus behind this effort, some serious consideration of the logical result of this move should be considered.


Indeed, this is such a move in the wrong direction that my suspicion is that it might ultimately lead to the elimination of the law school.  The only real basis, at least in the eyes of the public, for the University of Wyoming having a law school at all is to prepare students to be Wyoming lawyers.  This may not be evident to the faculty of the law school, but that’s how the school is perceived.  There is already a fair amount of discontent with the law school in certain quarters of Wyoming’s populace.  I would note that as a lawyer who is also a stockman, and familiar with the views held in the agricultural and mineral production industries, there is very little sympathy for the efforts of some of the College of Law’s professors who use their positions to support their efforts in opposition to those industries.

Academic freedom aside, if the Wyoming State Bar is not going to test on Wyoming topics, and if the only requirement for admission to the state bar after taking the UBE is to take a Wyoming CLE, then there is no reason for the University of Wyoming to retain the College of Law.  While practicing lawyers may not appreciate it, the general public has next to no sympathy whatsoever for the practice of law and the law school, and  there will be very little reason for the public to support the continued existence of a school which provides no unique Wyoming benefits and which employs some professors who are opposed to basic Wyoming industries.  For example, the College of Law's professor Deb Donahue has taken a radical approach to the topic of livestock on the public domain, essentially opposing its presence, although perhaps she's contributed a real gem of an argument the other way around in one essay when she sappily noted how when she looked out of the window of her Laramie home she wasn't witnessing wildlands the way they had been. . . no kidding. .  she was looking out from a house, the ultimate destroyer of wildland.  At any rate, it's asking a lot for anyone in the agriculture industry to support the existence of a state law school when the students don't have to take any Wyoming specific topics in order to take the bar safely, and when no Wyoming specific topic is a required course, and when no Wyoming specific law is being emphasized.  Members of the agricultural sector, for one, therefore have no incentive at all to support the ongoing existence of the law school and, as there's at least one professor that is a declared opponent of their interests, they have a real incentive to wish the law school's demise.

The same is now true for the oil and gas industry.  There has always been at least one professor at the College of Law who was an opponent, on private time, of some mineral industry activity. And academic freedom dictates that this must be allowed.  But it was also the case that a person could receive a very solid education in oil and gas law, and mining law (and water law) at he university.  It is my supposition that this is still the case. But at least as two of those topics, oil & gas, and water law, an incentive existed to study the topics in that they were on the bar exam.  Water law, as earlier noted, no longer is.  Now oil & gas will not be either.  In the midst of an oil boom, there's no earthly reason to suppose that this course of study in now not needed.  And, again, now this section of the state's economy, which is a huge portion of it, should wonder why bother with supporting the College of Law.    When there are those on the faculty who are industry opponents, an industry of this type probably ought to consider opposing the existence of the college, as the incentive that previously existed to take industry specific classes has now been removed.

Put another way, the University of Wyoming does not have a Medical School.  It does not have a Dental School.  It does not offer degrees in Veterinary Medicine.  Why should it have a College of Law if there is nothing Wyoming-centric about that institution’s education or to the admission to the Wyoming State Bar?

I very seriously doubt the implications of this move have been completely thought out, and if they were this course of action would not have been taken.  I doubt that this move is supported by the majority of the members of Wyoming’s bar.  I suspect that when the topic comes up in conversation with non lawyers, on the rare instances in which that might occur, that the UBE takers will be regarded as lesser lawyers, and I would be surprised if the Legislature did not begin to question why the University of Wyoming needs a law school if there are no Wyoming topics on the bar exam.  Indeed, I cannot think of a reason to support the law school in any fashion, other than that I am a graduate of it, and would think we might be better off taking the same approach we presently take towards dental, medical and veterinary students, in the absence of a real Wyoming State Bar exam. 

I'm not urging the elimination of the law school. I am urging the reconsideration of the UBE.

Postscript:

As anyone following the comments will know, assuming that they're not from here and don't already know it, Wyoming did charge ahead with the UBE and its solution, as described below, for the deficiency of Wyoming topics in the new testing regime was to require a CLE for admission. That's the way things now are.

At least a few lawyers I've spoken to about this are not happy at all about it, to include at least one other who was associated with putting together the CLE, as I was.  CLE topics were limited to about 10 minutes in length.  I fear that all we've done is open the door to malpractice, at best.

But, more particularly, one of my expressed concerns here has already been confirmed.  One lawyer I know well told me that he recently spoke to a Denver attorney who has confirmed that his firm now intends to send out Denver lawyers to each of the rural UBE states, Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. And I'm sure it won't be limited to one.  That will be the beginning of the end of whole categories of work in these states, and the results will not be happy ones for either actual clients or local lawyers.

My prediction on this is that within five to ten years entire classes of significant legal work will now be concentrated in Denver and Denver firms, where previously they were handled locally.  The old traditional firms that aren't aware of this danger will wake up to it within three or four years, but it will be too late for them. By that time, the backers of the UBE will be so entrenched that there will be no going back.

My further prediction is that this will be the end of the University of Wyoming's College of Law.  With the UBE, it is now wholly obsolete and totally unneeded.  The Dean of the College, who was somehow associated with the UBE CLE, sent out a congratulatory letter to all of us who worked on it, showing how ignorant on this development he is.  If we're going to give our work to Denver lawyers, what need have we of a law school here at all?  None.  Lawyers aren't well liked and most people see no reason for state sponsorship of the creation of more.  Now, there really isn't one.

It's the end of an era, to be sure.  Much of the court work and major business work will not be going to Denver. With that, the collegiality of the Wyoming bar will give way to the nasty behavior associated with most.  The need for a local law school has been eliminated.  The concerns of those of us opposed to this development won't even be recalled in short order.

 

Working outdoors

I was recently asked for some career advice, and I have a long post on that topic I may, or may not, post, but it's sort of related to this.

We have another thread up here on Working With Animals, the basic point of it being that there were, even fairly recently, (within the last century) a lot of jobs where people worked with animals.  Just recently it occurred to me, however, how many jobs there once were that were outdoor jobs that no longer are.

Indeed, it seems as if the entire western world has moved indoors, and not for the better really.

Working outdoors is something that a lot more people experienced on a daily basis than they do now.  Prior to the heavy mechanization of agriculture there were a lot more farmers and ranchers, for example.  People like freighters worked outdoors.  Policemen did. They still do, but at that time, they were truly outdoors.  Even people you wouldn't associate with outdoor careers, like lawyers and doctors, actually traveled locally a fair amount, in a way that was truly outdoors.

I don't think there's any replacement for being outdoors, and working inside and never seeing more of the outdoors than the space between the office and the car, or the parking lot and the store, isn't a good thing.  Of course, people know that, but what most people do, and even have little other choice but to do, is to replace being outdoors by necessity or vocation with a sort of anemic substitute.  I'm not blaming them, but an hour in a small city park in the middle of downtown isn't really being outdoors, in a true sense.  It's better than nothing, but it isn't the same thing.

I'm sure that in some sense all this indoors has a negative impact on our physical and psychological health.  With a nation in which so many are indoors, all the time, that's a fairly disturbing thing.

USDA Blog » Apache Youth Grows Food for His Community

USDA Blog » Apache Youth Grows Food for His Community

Urban and Rural in North American just before World War One.

The WWI history list has been having a fascinating discussion regarding urban and rural populations in North American just before World War One.  This started off as a discussion on the health of Dominion troops at the time of their enlistment. That's an interesting topic in and of itself, but what I have been finding really fascinating is the discussion of the percentage of the population that was "urban" or "rural" in North America.  

This came up in the context of malnourishment of British and Canadian enlistees in the armed forces in World War One. What I think was ultimately revealed is that a large number of Canadian volunteers hailed from the United Kingdom, and therefore made the statistics somewhat unreliable.  I'm not posting this here for that story, however, although it is interesting. Rather, I'm posting it because of what some of these threads reveal about the urban and rural makeup of North America in the first half of the 20th Century.

 Farm Service Administration poster, 1930s.

Some interesting items:

Independent subsistence farming is not always easy, even in the best of times. 

With a rapidly-growing, just-industrializing population it can be even worse, since lots of people are compelled to farm marginal land, as the best land is already long taken. Surpluses frequently can't be moved to areas of drought or failed crops because the transportation infrastructure is poorly developed, and the social welfare "safety net" systems are usually fragmented and localized. 

The newly industrializing sector receives the attention and financial support, while those "underachieving hillbilly grubbers" are somewhat contemptuously ignored. 

In the cities where industry is beginning to take off, the workers still have little collective clout to bargain for better working conditions and pay. Rumors of jobs bring in more people from the countryside than there is work to support them. And again, large scale welfare systems simply don't exist to take care of those without jobs.

As mechanized agriculture begins, the price of grain tends to fall, and areas at the edges of the transport infrastructure are no longer worth shipping from, so small farmers lose much of the little cash income they may have previously earned. That money was once the "cushion" that tided them over through tough times and failed crops; food preservation is relatively undeveloped, so that this years' surplus can't just be stored indefinitely against future need.

There are lots of reasons why people are malnourished in societies just transitioning between agricultural and industrial.

V/R

James

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• According to the 1911 Census, Canada's population was 54% rural and 46% urban, although the definition of urban was living in any size town or city. The equivalent 1901 census figures were 62% rural and 38% urban, indicating Canada was urbanizing.
• According to a survey of attestation papers by the Directorate of History, the average height of the Canadian soldier in the First World War was 5' 4" and the majority of serving soldiers were townsmen and not from the country.
• Canada’s net output per capita of manufactured goods was only exceeded by Belgium, the US, and the UK, so Canada was not only rapidly urbanizing it was also industrializing.

Looks like Canada and the U.S, were tracing very similar paths toward urbanization and industrialization, as one would expect.

I think it fairly intuitive that significantly more than half of recruits would come from urban areas, even though only half the population lived in such areas. This was a time of very rapid urbanization; people were flocking to the cities faster than jobs were being created for them (a theme common to all urbanizing/industrializing nations). Landless, jobless men with no immediate prospects are an ideal recruiting pool.

V/R

James

 Emblem Wyoming, late 1930s.

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Thank you (saves me from having to dig those up for Canada, for one thing).

54% rural is a pretty large number, particularly if we consider that “urban” does not mean “living in big city”, but any town.  If we take the population of agriculturally based towns, of which there were a great number before large scale mechanization of agriculture, that’s a very large percentage of the population that most people would regard as rural in the casual sense.

Very interesting discussion, by the way.

Cattle buyers, Denver stockyards, late 1930s.

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Hi James, quite correct, I was too quick to use unsupported memory.  As Bill's stats indicate, Canada at least was only approaching parity in terms of rural / urban spit in 1914. 
However I stand by my main point that the majority (i'll eschew adjectives) of enlistment was from the urban population.  In support Bill has already indicated that his source supports this for Canada, and whilst the Stats for the AIF that I have seen don't provide an explicit urban / rural split, the breakdown by trades gives those classified as 'Country callings' as 17.36% of the total.

cheers

Pete

 Cattle buyers, Denver stockyards, late 1930s.

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According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, for Australia the proportion of urban dwellers (major cities and regional centres) for 1911 was 43.55%.  By 1921 it was 49.7% and by 1933 it was 53.73% (the latter was no doubt amplified by the Depression and lower than normal rainfull leading to full drought in the easter states that went from 1937 to 1947 (ending with the first post war Ashes Series in Australia!)  causing many to walk off the land).
 

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The break-even point between rural and urban populations was reached in the U.S only between 1910 and 1920. 

According to the Census Bureau, 45.6% of Americans were urban dwellers in 1910; by 1920 it was 51.2%.

It seems HIGHLY implausible that the "vast majority" of either Australia's or Canada's population was urban in 1914!

V/R

James

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 Farm Service Administration poster, 1930s.