7 ms·

The Future of Rural New England (1897)

51 points by luu 4y ago

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
Amazing how little attitudes change over the years. This reads just like a modern Bostonian complaining about the ways and inhabitants of places like Springfield or Fall River. That said, much to the credit of Mr. Sandborn, unlike many, perhaps most, of his modern counterparts he does not implicitly assume superiority to the people about who's plight he writes nor does he proclaim that fixing his favorite pet issues using his favorite pet solutions will suddenly fix everyone's problems.
dont__panic 4y ago
As someone who frequently blames car-dependence for many of the USA's social problems, this passage really stood out: The large size of the townships and the long distances between dwellings have had much to do with making social coherence difficult. A single township may embrace four or five communities two or three miles apart, with no common rallying-point but the annual townmeeting. Not only do these detached sections get nothing socially from the township as a whole, but they are not, as a rule, populous or compact enough to have any appreciable social activity of their own. In this respect our farming communities are at a distinct disadvantage as compared with those of France and most of the other countries of the Old World. There the tillers of the soil live closely together, in almost crowded villages, from which they go forth to their work in the outlying fields. I wonder why even early in the USA's history, before cars, before railroads, we distributed housing so widely as to inhibit socialization? I guess it's because towns grew up around separate farmsteads, instead of a bunch of non-owners living in town, working fields around town for an estate owner? I usually assume that this USA-specific "missing middle" of dense housing is a result of car culture and the suburban nightmare we've created across the country. In fact, I specifically chose to live in a small, dense New England town because I like that kind of socialization and walkability. It is curious to hear someone complaining about the same issue, over 100 years ago, for entirely different reasons.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  I know double-commenting is frowned upon, but this quote also stood out to me as a bike nerd: The least important, perhaps, and yet to some of us the saddest thing about the decay of New England country life has been the disappearance of the hospitable wayside tavern. Something similar, it is hoped, may be brought in by the bicycle. It is much to be feared, however, that the new bicycle road-house will be nothing more hospitable than a mammoth stand-up lunch-counter. I wonder what these wayside taverns were like. Nowadays, I find myself happy enough with "stand-up lunch-counters" when I bicycle tour (ride self-supported long distances by bicycle). I also find myself greatly appreciating the dirt roads present in Vermont and much of New England, since they slow down car traffic and are honestly much more pleasant to bike on than poorly maintained pavement roads. Meanwhile, this author laments the poor state of (presumably dirt) carriage roads across rural New England. It's interesting how I seem to agree with the base thoughts and preferences of the author, but we have inverted preferences on these things (for similar reasons). I wonder what this author thought about the automobile.
  - baxtr 4y ago
    What is double-commenting?
    - waster 4y ago
      Replying to one's own comment.
    - dcminter 4y ago
      Presumably they mean creating a daughter comment to their own top-level comment? Though I'm not personally aware of any particular convention against it.
  - jollyllama 4y ago
    It's relatively easier to have a pint or two and ride a horse or drive a wagon than it is to do the same and ride an old bicycle. I would assume you could also water, feed, and rest your horse at the tavern, which a bicycle did not require.
onecommentman 4y ago
Journal issue (July 1897) available from Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1897-07_80_477/page/74/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1897-07_80_477/page...
bell-cot 4y ago
From my dim recollections of a long-ago history book - back around that time, rural New England was a pretty dire "agricultural rust belt" - because none of the climate, geography, or typical size of farms there could compete with "newer" farms in parts of the country further west. And railroads were bringing the cheaper products of those farms east, to directly compete with New England's small, old, rocky farms.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  This is accurate. The soil in the Midwest is unbelievably fertile especially compared to the Northeast. Also, you have a longer growing cycle and transportation is significantly cheaper. I believe that Vermont agriculture was at its peak in the 1700s and shrank every decade since.
MichaelZuo 4y ago
There are many wonderful passages, such as: " The same influences that caused the depletion and the decay of Dickerman — the rush to the gold-fields, the civil war, the emigration to the prairies, the large cities, and the manufacturing towns, and the feeling of isolation and lack of opportunity resulting from this emigration — have been operative throughout all rural New England with more or less disastrous results. Another influence, just as generally operative, has been an exaggerated notion of the luxury and gentility of city life. To hail from Boston or from New York is to be both wealthy and aristocratic, according to the typical rural mind, which groups city people together in a single social stratum, without question as to where they live or how they live, and assigns farmers, whatever their individual qualities, to a social stratum lower by many degrees. This absurd notion has not only driven country people away from the country, but has also demoralized those whom it has not driven away. Hence has come the pathetic desire of such as find themselves doomed to live elsewhere than in cities to imitate, as nearly as their imperfect knowledge permits, the manner of life of city folk. They endeavor to dress as city people dress, to furnish their rooms as city people do, even to readjust their houses to the city mode. They remodel a fine, sensible old homestead into something that is neither a farmhouse nor a town-house, but an ugly nondescript, with the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither; or they demolish a house honestly built to stand for generations to make way for a gingerbread sham of a villa, as much out of place in the midst of farm surroundings as bric-àbrac would be in a stable. They discard their heirlooms — handsome, heavy, antique furniture, and rare china—for upto-date gewgaws, with neither durability, usefulness, nor beauty to recommend them. The women waste no end of time and money, and fret and fuss their lives out into the bargain, in a vain and ludicrous attempt to keep pace, from season to season, with the changing fashions in dresses and hats. Furthermore, this grotesque exaltation of city conduct has bred a contempt not only for the healthy outdoor work that women formerly did, but also for menial labor of every sort even within doors." And " It is a trite saying, and only partially true, but true enough to bear repeating, that if the average farmer did his work with the same intelligence that the average business man uses, he would succeed as well as the latter. The farmer, instead of studying markets systematically, makes wild hits at them. Because peas brought a good price a previous season, owing to their scarcity, he plants ten times as many peas as usual; forgetting that everybody else has planted peas for the same reason. If he lives near enough to a city to make dairying and market-gardening profitable, he is likely to become possessed with the desire to raise only one or two vegetables ; or he ignores the proper rotation of crops; or he is constantly sacrificing permanent profit for ready cash, taking everything out of the land, and putting nothing into it. After leaving his wagons, tools, and machines exposed to all the elements, he is amazed and angry that he so often has to buy new ones, curses them for being poorly made, and inveighs boisterously against the dishonesty of the time. Such a farmer seems never to learn that clubs and families in cities are willing to pay a high price for thoroughly honest products ; for when he finds persons who might easily be made permanent buyers from him, he estranges them by inflicting upon them dishonest things. Doing little to make his produce attractive, he nevertheless devotes a great deal of ingenunity to arranging it dishonestly, — “ deaconing it,” to use the significant country phrase. He " deacons ” his fruit, his vegetables, everything in fact, even his eggs, — selling as fresh eggs that have been packed all winter, and taking it as a sort of personal affront that the men who stamp and guarantee their eggs can command a fancy price all the year. Although the farmer is perhaps not more dishonest than other men, it is probable that he suffers more from his dishonesty than most others : partly because he deals so largely with perishable materials, in which fraud is easily and quickly detected ; and partly because he is less subtle in his deceits, and less apt in defending himself against the consequences of detection. One year when the best apples were hard to dispose of, a certain district Grange offered its members a chance to send apples to Liverpool. Some took advantage of the situation to get rid of their poor fruit. The Liverpool agents very naturally felt aggrieved, and the Liverpool market was closed to the farmers of that district for the rest of the season, during which many barrels of good fruit rotted. "
MontgomeryPy 4y ago
Anyone know where the township of Dickerman is/was in New England? Can't seem to find on map.
- jmclnx 4y ago
  here you go :) http://www.townhistory.org/category/families/dickerman/ http://www.townhistory.org/category/families/dickerman/ edit: was too quick with the link :) Not the town
tetromino_ 4y ago
The first few paragraphs of the article read like the intro of an H.P. Lovecraft novel. Certainly explains why he often chose the New England farms and small towns as the setting for unspeakable horrors!

51 points by luu 4y ago

Amazing how little attitudes change over the years. This reads just like a modern Bostonian complaining about the ways and inhabitants of places like Springfield or Fall River. That said, much to the credit of Mr. Sandborn, unlike many, perhaps most, of his modern counterparts he does not implicitly assume superiority to the people about who's plight he writes nor does he proclaim that fixing his favorite pet issues using his favorite pet solutions will suddenly fix everyone's problems.

dont__panic 4y ago

As someone who frequently blames car-dependence for many of the USA's social problems, this passage really stood out: The large size of the townships and the long distances between dwellings have had much to do with making social coherence difficult. A single township may embrace four or five communities two or three miles apart, with no common rallying-point but the annual townmeeting. Not only do these detached sections get nothing socially from the township as a whole, but they are not, as a rule, populous or compact enough to have any appreciable social activity of their own. In this respect our farming communities are at a distinct disadvantage as compared with those of France and most of the other countries of the Old World. There the tillers of the soil live closely together, in almost crowded villages, from which they go forth to their work in the outlying fields. I wonder why even early in the USA's history, before cars, before railroads, we distributed housing so widely as to inhibit socialization? I guess it's because towns grew up around separate farmsteads, instead of a bunch of non-owners living in town, working fields around town for an estate owner? I usually assume that this USA-specific "missing middle" of dense housing is a result of car culture and the suburban nightmare we've created across the country. In fact, I specifically chose to live in a small, dense New England town because I like that kind of socialization and walkability. It is curious to hear someone complaining about the same issue, over 100 years ago, for entirely different reasons.

dont__panic 4y ago
I know double-commenting is frowned upon, but this quote also stood out to me as a bike nerd: The least important, perhaps, and yet to some of us the saddest thing about the decay of New England country life has been the disappearance of the hospitable wayside tavern. Something similar, it is hoped, may be brought in by the bicycle. It is much to be feared, however, that the new bicycle road-house will be nothing more hospitable than a mammoth stand-up lunch-counter. I wonder what these wayside taverns were like. Nowadays, I find myself happy enough with "stand-up lunch-counters" when I bicycle tour (ride self-supported long distances by bicycle). I also find myself greatly appreciating the dirt roads present in Vermont and much of New England, since they slow down car traffic and are honestly much more pleasant to bike on than poorly maintained pavement roads. Meanwhile, this author laments the poor state of (presumably dirt) carriage roads across rural New England. It's interesting how I seem to agree with the base thoughts and preferences of the author, but we have inverted preferences on these things (for similar reasons). I wonder what this author thought about the automobile.
- baxtr 4y ago
  What is double-commenting?
  - waster 4y ago
    Replying to one's own comment.
  - dcminter 4y ago
    Presumably they mean creating a daughter comment to their own top-level comment? Though I'm not personally aware of any particular convention against it.
- jollyllama 4y ago
  It's relatively easier to have a pint or two and ride a horse or drive a wagon than it is to do the same and ride an old bicycle. I would assume you could also water, feed, and rest your horse at the tavern, which a bicycle did not require.

onecommentman 4y ago

Journal issue (July 1897) available from Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1897-07_80_477/page/74/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1897-07_80_477/page...

bell-cot 4y ago

From my dim recollections of a long-ago history book - back around that time, rural New England was a pretty dire "agricultural rust belt" - because none of the climate, geography, or typical size of farms there could compete with "newer" farms in parts of the country further west. And railroads were bringing the cheaper products of those farms east, to directly compete with New England's small, old, rocky farms.

throwayyy479087 4y ago
This is accurate. The soil in the Midwest is unbelievably fertile especially compared to the Northeast. Also, you have a longer growing cycle and transportation is significantly cheaper. I believe that Vermont agriculture was at its peak in the 1700s and shrank every decade since.

MichaelZuo 4y ago

There are many wonderful passages, such as: " The same influences that caused the depletion and the decay of Dickerman — the rush to the gold-fields, the civil war, the emigration to the prairies, the large cities, and the manufacturing towns, and the feeling of isolation and lack of opportunity resulting from this emigration — have been operative throughout all rural New England with more or less disastrous results. Another influence, just as generally operative, has been an exaggerated notion of the luxury and gentility of city life. To hail from Boston or from New York is to be both wealthy and aristocratic, according to the typical rural mind, which groups city people together in a single social stratum, without question as to where they live or how they live, and assigns farmers, whatever their individual qualities, to a social stratum lower by many degrees. This absurd notion has not only driven country people away from the country, but has also demoralized those whom it has not driven away. Hence has come the pathetic desire of such as find themselves doomed to live elsewhere than in cities to imitate, as nearly as their imperfect knowledge permits, the manner of life of city folk. They endeavor to dress as city people dress, to furnish their rooms as city people do, even to readjust their houses to the city mode. They remodel a fine, sensible old homestead into something that is neither a farmhouse nor a town-house, but an ugly nondescript, with the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither; or they demolish a house honestly built to stand for generations to make way for a gingerbread sham of a villa, as much out of place in the midst of farm surroundings as bric-àbrac would be in a stable. They discard their heirlooms — handsome, heavy, antique furniture, and rare china—for upto-date gewgaws, with neither durability, usefulness, nor beauty to recommend them. The women waste no end of time and money, and fret and fuss their lives out into the bargain, in a vain and ludicrous attempt to keep pace, from season to season, with the changing fashions in dresses and hats. Furthermore, this grotesque exaltation of city conduct has bred a contempt not only for the healthy outdoor work that women formerly did, but also for menial labor of every sort even within doors." And " It is a trite saying, and only partially true, but true enough to bear repeating, that if the average farmer did his work with the same intelligence that the average business man uses, he would succeed as well as the latter. The farmer, instead of studying markets systematically, makes wild hits at them. Because peas brought a good price a previous season, owing to their scarcity, he plants ten times as many peas as usual; forgetting that everybody else has planted peas for the same reason. If he lives near enough to a city to make dairying and market-gardening profitable, he is likely to become possessed with the desire to raise only one or two vegetables ; or he ignores the proper rotation of crops; or he is constantly sacrificing permanent profit for ready cash, taking everything out of the land, and putting nothing into it. After leaving his wagons, tools, and machines exposed to all the elements, he is amazed and angry that he so often has to buy new ones, curses them for being poorly made, and inveighs boisterously against the dishonesty of the time. Such a farmer seems never to learn that clubs and families in cities are willing to pay a high price for thoroughly honest products ; for when he finds persons who might easily be made permanent buyers from him, he estranges them by inflicting upon them dishonest things. Doing little to make his produce attractive, he nevertheless devotes a great deal of ingenunity to arranging it dishonestly, — “ deaconing it,” to use the significant country phrase. He " deacons ” his fruit, his vegetables, everything in fact, even his eggs, — selling as fresh eggs that have been packed all winter, and taking it as a sort of personal affront that the men who stamp and guarantee their eggs can command a fancy price all the year. Although the farmer is perhaps not more dishonest than other men, it is probable that he suffers more from his dishonesty than most others : partly because he deals so largely with perishable materials, in which fraud is easily and quickly detected ; and partly because he is less subtle in his deceits, and less apt in defending himself against the consequences of detection. One year when the best apples were hard to dispose of, a certain district Grange offered its members a chance to send apples to Liverpool. Some took advantage of the situation to get rid of their poor fruit. The Liverpool agents very naturally felt aggrieved, and the Liverpool market was closed to the farmers of that district for the rest of the season, during which many barrels of good fruit rotted. "

MontgomeryPy 4y ago

Anyone know where the township of Dickerman is/was in New England? Can't seem to find on map.

jmclnx 4y ago
here you go :) http://www.townhistory.org/category/families/dickerman/ http://www.townhistory.org/category/families/dickerman/ edit: was too quick with the link :) Not the town

tetromino_ 4y ago

The first few paragraphs of the article read like the intro of an H.P. Lovecraft novel. Certainly explains why he often chose the New England farms and small towns as the setting for unspeakable horrors!