greyhounds: The only primary sources cited on this thread were, I believe, by Wanswheel. But you apparently conclude those are myth and fiction? The quotations you cut and pasted are simply informed opinions by two historians, not documents that in any way factually refute the Muscle Slough Massacre nor the very real conflict between farmers and the SP.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimmYou cut and pasted a few quotes from the book you read. They are the valued opinions of a scholar, but what you posted is merely his opinion. There were no citations from primary sources. Frankly if the dismissive tone and quality of the quotes is representative of the entire opus, then it is merely a polemic. That is not historical research, just opinion. More likely you cut and paste his comments to reflect your own revisionist, anti-populist attitude.
Oh, I did more than cut and paste. I read the book. I've found that people can learn a lot from books, if they read them. Which I did.
Anyway both Orsi (I read his "Sunset Limited" too.) and Deverell agree that the portraial of the railroad's land sale policy in the fictional novel "The Octopus" is fiction, not fact. They're both History PhD's.
The author of "The Octopus" needed drama. If he had to misrepresent some things, so what? He was writing fiction. Norris, the author of "The Octopus", was a novelist writing fiction, not a historian.
If you need further proof take a look at this from Stanford University.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/pub.php?id=87
Check out paragraph #17. Note that SP's land grant acreage was quickly sold and put into agricultural production. Contrast that with large parcels acquired by speculators who held the land idle looking for appreciation in value. SP, in contrast, wanted the land in production. They priced it to sell. The Stanford maps show that fact.
SP's land policy helped a lot of folks better themselves. People got their own farms and could support their families in a decent manner.
But Norris, in "The Octopus", needed drama and an antagonist. So he misrepresented the railroad's land policy. There's nothing wrong with what he did. He was writing fiction. He can make up anything he wants to make up. The problem develops when people take "The Octopus" as historical fact instead of the fabricated fiction it is.
Let's see: we've been to Cal State Hayward with Orsi, USC with Deverell, and now Stanford. It's like a university tour of California. The Stanford maps pretty well settle the issue. Norris misrepresented the land sale policies of the SP. There's no two ways about it.
You cut and pasted a few quotes from the book you read. They are the valued opinions of a scholar, but what you posted is merely his opinion. There were no citations from primary sources. Frankly if the dismissive tone and quality of the quotes is representative of the entire opus, then it is merely a polemic. That is not historical research, just opinion. More likely you cut and paste his comments to reflect your own revisionist, anti-populist attitude.
The biblio I posted was for background of the period, only. Do with it as you please. But you already have opinions carved in stone, so it would be a waste of your time, apparently, to be exposed to anything that differs from that POV.
The problem for me is that I do not have access to history databases to search journals, where the real scholarly research resides.
schlimm For more broad background to expand one's knowledge, rather than treat scholarship as some "contest": Calhoun C. W. (2007). Political culture: public life and the conduct of politics. The gilded age: perspectives on the origins of modern America. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. Hine R. V., & Faragher J. M. (2000). Open range. The American West: a new interpretive history. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. Kazin M. (2001). The righteous Commonwealth of the late nineteenth century. Major problems in the gilded age and the progressive era: documents and essays. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Painter N. I. (2001). The depression of the 1890s. Major problems in the gilded age and the progressive era: documents and essays. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Sicilia D. B. (2007). Industrialization and the rise of corporations, 1860-1900. (Barney W. L., Ed.)A Companion to 19th-Century America. Malden, Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc. Smith, P. (1984) The Rise of Industrial America. New York, USA: McGraw-Hill. [Warning. very much a polemic, with no notes, but still a great read by a once great scholar.] Something lost in all this is the context. The struggles of farmers throughout the western US with the rails, especially the SP,are well known. They actually occurred.The specific details may be disputed, but to imply that it is merely/mostly a work of fiction is the worst sort of revisionist history.
For more broad background to expand one's knowledge, rather than treat scholarship as some "contest":
Calhoun C. W. (2007). Political culture: public life and the conduct of politics. The gilded age: perspectives on the origins of modern America. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hine R. V., & Faragher J. M. (2000). Open range. The American West: a new interpretive history. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
Kazin M. (2001). The righteous Commonwealth of the late nineteenth century. Major problems in the gilded age and the progressive era: documents and essays. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Painter N. I. (2001). The depression of the 1890s. Major problems in the gilded age and the progressive era: documents and essays. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Sicilia D. B. (2007). Industrialization and the rise of corporations, 1860-1900. (Barney W. L., Ed.)A Companion to 19th-Century America. Malden, Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
Smith, P. (1984) The Rise of Industrial America. New York, USA: McGraw-Hill. [Warning. very much a polemic, with no notes, but still a great read by a once great scholar.]
Something lost in all this is the context. The struggles of farmers throughout the western US with the rails, especially the SP,are well known. They actually occurred.The specific details may be disputed, but to imply that it is merely/mostly a work of fiction is the worst sort of revisionist history.
No, you do your own research.
I'm citing direct quotes by author, book, and page number. You produce a book list with no citations. The books you list cover things such as the war with Mexico, the acquisistion of Alaska, etc. If there is something relevant in there please point it out. I am not going to look for something that isn't there.
You have claimed that Orsi's account of Southern Pacific's land sale policy is disputed. But you have not been able to cite one such instance. I don't think you can. You're holding on to a myth.
As to the farmers vs. the railroads. It's pretty much hokum. The farmers did complain a lot. So? The farmers have wanted lower railroad rates since there have been railroad rates.
If you've got some specifics about railroad abuse of farmers I'll take a look. But I want specifics, not myths.
Ken,
Thanks for the review.
- Erik
"Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad 1850 - 1910" by William Deverell. Available through Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Railroad-Crossing-Californians-1850-1910/dp/0520082141/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426468592&sr=1-1&keywords=railroad+crossing+deverell
This book derives from Deverell's doctoral disertation for a PhD in history. It was published in 1994. 21 years later Deverell is the "Chair" of the history department at the University of Southern California. (I really do not like calling a person a "Chair". But "Chairman" is not gender neutral, so "Chair" it is.)
I bought and read this book as a result of a previous discussion on this forum. http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/244996.aspx?page=2
The thread had evolved into a discussion of Frank Norris' fictional novel "The Octopus". I maintained that The Octopus was but a work of fiction and should not be regarded as a serious history. Schlimm was in disagreement. I was relying of the research and documentation of Richard Orsi, another writer with a PhD in history.
http://www.amazon.com/Sunset-Limited-Southern-Development-1850-1930-ebook/dp/B003FGWPU4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426470973&sr=1-1&keywords=southern+pacific+orsi
Orsi basically pointed out that the fiction novelist, Norris, had stood facts on their head regarding the sale of land grant acreage by the Southern Pacific to farmers. It made for a great novel, but a historically inaccurate novel. Unfortunatly "The Octopus" has been accepted as factual instead of fictional by way too many people.
Schlimm basically accused Orsi of "Cherry Picking" data while claiming that other historians strongly disagreed with Orsi. I ask for the names of such other historians who disputed Orsi so I could read their work. After some coaxing I got some names. One of those names was Deverell. I did a search, found a book written by Deverell on the railroad, bought the book, and read it.
Nowhere in "Railroad Crossing" does Deverell dispute or contradict Orsi's facts. Nowhere. In fact, he cites writings by Orsi as a source. Now that does it! That's two PhD historians. Unless Schlimm or someone else can specifically point me to a doumented souce that disputes both Deverell and Orsi, I'm done with this. I won't close my mind, but I'm not going to chase all around the Internet based on unsubstantiated accusations of "Cherry Picking" the data. Put up or shut up; and cite your sources for historical claims.
About what Deverell wrote:
Words that made me laugh out loud:
Regarding the Origins of California Progressivism -- "If anything is clear about California Progressivism, it is surely this: if the railroad did not exist, the Progressives would have had to invent it." P. 151
Words about The Octopus:
"Reading uncritically, many historians have accepted The Octopus as a faithful depiction of the power, even menace of the Southern Pacific Corporation. But naming the ostensibly fictional work as a companion to history -- if not history itself -- is extremely problematic." P. 139.
"Frank Norris wanted simply to write a great novel. The truth he was interested in portraying was not the truth embedded in the minutiae of historical fact." P. 139
"The novel's depiction of the circumstances surrounding the outbreak of violence at Mussel Slough is woefully inadequate as history, and is both unfair and misleading to term the novel a history of that partiular conflict. Combining novelistic license with popular legend and misunderstanding, Norris produced real drama but a sketchy and unreliable version of events." P. 142
On what Norris got right:
"The Octopus: A Story of California cannot replace conventional works of California history. Its chronology is flawed. It presents a misleading portrayal of a notorious incident, and it should not be evaluated as a historical docoument pertaining to railroad conflict. Yet Frank Norris did get certain things 'right' in his famous work. He knew of the railroad's intrusiveness in people's lives; he understood the extraordinary impact of a remarkable technological innovation. Often sinister, dangerous, and troubling, this new technology invited opposistion. Coupled with an undeniably powerful corporate superstructure, the railroad forever changed the lives of Californians. A product of that power was opposition -- influential, vibranty, and extremely diverse. This opposition created and exacerbated social and political fissures in California society." P. 148
It seems Norris was writing about change, inevitable change. This change disrupted lives and lead to conflict. Read in that context the novel does get many things "Right". But it's not a good history.
As it says inside the front cover of Deverell's book: "Nothing so changed nineteenth-century America as the railroad."
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