Category Archives: 19th century history

There are giants of the second half of the nineteenth century who are well known, and not so well known. For my summer reading, I am journeying through the stories of Rockefeller, Grant, Burr and Mueller.

On audiocassette (via a find at the Goodwill), I’m listening to George Plimpton read The Titan, by Chernow. The book gives an in-depth look at John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and the rise of Standard Oil. Rockefeller put up his first oil refinery in Cleveland in 1862, and by 1866, some 70 refineries (of various owners) were in operation.

From my father’s library comes a copy of Gore Vidal’s 1876 about Aaron Burr and the corrupt Grant administration. I am about to dip into this “consummate work of historical fiction” for my next summer reading adventure.

One not-so-well-known giant of the 19th century is Jacob Mueller. Mueller came to the United States in the wave of Germans after the Revolution of 1848. He was the editor of the Wachter und Anzeiger German newspaper in Cleveland, and also penned Cleveland and Its Germans and Memories of a Forty-Eighter. Since these books were written in German, they received little attention, but I’m fortunate that in 1996 the Western Reserve Historical Society brought out translations. Here’s a quote from 48er that could be written today:

Without being intended as such, the American government is a government of parties, and the discipline of party controls even the most important politician. All must bow down to these idols if they want to have any significance, and often they have to sacrifice their own opinions.
… [In campaigns], all that was done in public was simple, artificial enthusiasm. Much noise and little substance. Party zealots and party-leaders carried the day. Almost inhuman feats were accomplished in one party maligning the other. … Fortunately, things were not so bad as the stump speakers painted them.

(Memories of a Forty-Eighter, pp. 28-31)

Don’t kid yourself: we’ve known about climate change all along. While the history books talk a lot about the prevailing attitude of Manifest Destiny, and the drive of young Americans to revolutionize industry and technology in the early 1800s, not everyone was blind to the damage being done.

James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers, the first in his series of novels known as Leather-Stocking Tales, is about central New York and environs in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The time period of the book is 1793. Here’s a brief passage early on:
“There was a glittering in the atmosphere, as if it were filled with innumerable shining particles, and the noble bay horses that drew the sleigh were covered, in many parts, with a coat of hoar frost.” (p. 17, Penguin Classics edition 1988) At the bottom of the page, Cooper adds the following footnote: “Many of the American sleighs are elegant, though the use of this mode of conveyance is much lessened with the melioration of the climate, consequent on the clearing of the forests. [1832]”

What’s that, you say? “Melioration of the climate,” aka climate change?

In fact, the undercurrent of the book seems to be the tension between wilderness preservationists and wilderness tamers. On pp. 251 – 260, a group of men have gathered by moonlight to drag Lake Otsego for bass with a seine net. While the owner of the land, Judge Marmaduke Templeton, watches them haul in the fish, he observes to his daughter Elizabeth:

“This is a fearful expenditure of the choicest gifts of Providence. These fish, Bess, which thou seest lying in such piles before thee, and which, by to-morrow evening, will be rejected food on the meanest table in Templeton, are of a quality and flavour that, in other countries, would make them esteemed a luxury on the tables of princes or epicures. The world has no better fish than the bass of Otsego: it unites the richness of the shad to the firmness of the salmon.”

“But surely, dear sir,” cried Elizabeth, “they must be a great blessing to the country, and a powerful friend to the poor.”

“The poor are always prodigal, my child, where there is plenty, and seldom think of a provision against the morrow. But if there can be any excuse for destroying animals in this manner, it is in taking the bass. During the winter, you know, they are entirely protected from our assaults by the ice, for they refuse the hook; and during the hot months, they are not seen. It is supposed they retreat to the deep and cool waters of the lake, at that season; and it is only in the spring and autumn, that, for a few days, they are to be found, around the points where they are within the reach of a seine. But, like all the other treasures of the wilderness, they already begin to disappear, before the wasteful extravagance of man.” (p. 259)

Shortly afterward, Elizabeth comments: “Observe the countenance of that wood-chopper, while he exults in presenting a larger fish than common to my cousin Sheriff; and see, Louisa, how handsome and considerate my dear father looks, by the light of that fire, where he stands viewing the havoc of the game. He seems melancholy, as if he actually thought a day of retribution was to follow this hour of abundance and prodigality!” (p. 262)

Cooper was a voice crying in the wilderness. And take care, for it would seem our hour is up.