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U.S.
A N A R R AT I V E H I S T O RY
Seventh Edition

James West Davidson


Brian DeLay
University of California, Berkeley

Christine Leigh Heyrman


University of Delaware

Mark H. Lytle
Bard College

Michael B. Stoff
University of Texas, Austin
U.S.: A Narrative History
AUTHORS
James West Davidson Brian DeLay
Christine Leigh Heyrman Mark H. Lytle Michael B. Stoff

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCTS & MARKETS Kurt L. Strand


VICE PRESIDENT, GENERAL MANAGER, PRODUCTS & MARKETS Michael Ryan
VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT DESIGN & DELIVERY Kimberly Meriwether David
MANAGING DIRECTOR Gina Boedeker
BRAND MANAGER Laura Wilk
LEAD PRODUCT DEVELOPER Rhona Robbin
EXECUTIVE MARKETING MANAGER Stacy Ruel Best
MARKETING MANAGER April Cole
DIGITAL PRODUCT ANALYST John Brady
DIRECTOR, CONTENT DESIGN & DELIVERY Terri Schiesl
PROGRAM MANAGER Marianne Musni
CONTENT PROJECT MANAGER Christine A. Vaughan
CONTENT PROJECT MANAGER Emily Kline
BUYER Laura M. Fuller
DESIGN Matt Backhaus
CONTENT LICENSING SPECIALIST, IMAGES Lori Hancock
CONTENT LICENSING SPECIALIST, TEXT Beth Thole
COMPOSITOR Laserwords Private Limited
TYPEFACE 10/12 UniMath
PRINTER R. R. Donnelley

U.S.: A Narrative History, Seventh Edition


Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2015 by McGraw-Hill Edu-
cation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2012, 2009. No part of
this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval
system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or
other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United
States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOW/DOW 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4
ISBN 978-0-07-778042-5 (complete); MHID 0-07-778042-6 (complete)
ISBN 978-0-07-351330-0 (volume 1); MHID 0-07-351330-X (volume 1)
ISBN 978-0-07-778036-4 (volume 2); MHID 0-07-778036-1 (volume 2)
Cover image credits: Miss Ting; Idaho farm; woman weaving; “Our City” lithograph of St. Louis, Janicke and Co.
1859; “Pocahantas Saving the Life of Capt. John Smith,”(detail); “Heart of the Klondike”(detail): The Library of
Congress; Caesar Chavez (detail): © Arthur Schatz/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; Hopewell Hand: © Heritage
Images/Corbis; Freedman’s School: © Bettmann/Corbis; “Mandan Dog Sled,” Karl Bodmer: © Free Library, Phila-
delphia/Bridgeman Images; “Tragic Prelude” (detail): © Kansas State Historical Society; “Mrs. Chandler” (detail):
Courtesy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Uncle Sam with Banjo: HistoryPicks; View from Space: © NASA/
JSC; Buffalo Hunt: Courtesy, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014943610


WHAT’S NEW IN
U.S. U.S.
1 The First Civilizations
of North America 1
BRIEF CONTENTS

18 The New South and the


Trans-Mississippi West
1870–1890 351
SOME HIGHLIGHTS: 2 Old Worlds, New
Worlds 1400–1600 17 19 The New Industrial Order
DUELING DOCUMENTS is a new feature 1870–1900 374
box appearing in half of the chapters. Each
3 Colonization and Conflict in
box showcases two primary sources with
the South 20 The Rise of an Urban
1600–1750 37 Order
contrasting points of view for analysis and
1870–1900 395
discussion. Introductions and critical- 4 Colonization and Conflict in
thinking questions frame the documents. the North 21 The Political System
1600–1700 59 under Strain at Home and
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX, alternating with Duel- Abroad
ing Documents, continues to showcase his- 5 The Mosaic of Eighteenth-
1877–1900 417
torical images and artifacts, asking students to Century America
focus on visual evidence and examine material 1689–1768 79 22 The Progressive Era
1890–1920 442
culture. New items in this edition include an 6 Imperial Triumph, Imperial
ancient Indian calendar from Chaco Canyon, a Crisis 23 The United States and the
plantation owner’s list of runaway slaves, a lith- 1754–1776 99 Collapse of the Old World
ograph from a missionary society, Ku Klux Klan Order
costumes, a lithograph on Custer’s defeat, an
7 The American People and
1901–1920 465
the American Revolution
advertisement for beauty cream, and stills from
1775–1783 120 24 The New Era
the 1951 Civil Defense film, Duck and Cover.
1920–1929 488
8 Crisis and Constitution
GEOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS have been added to
1776–1789 139 25 The Great Depression and
many map captions to reinforce geographic lit- the New Deal
eracy and to connect the maps to the chapter’s 9 The Early Republic
1929–1939 510
relevant themes. 1789–1824 158

10 The Opening of America


26 America’s Rise to
EVERY CHAPTER has been revised to reflect new Globalism
1815–1850 186
trends in scholarship. For example, CHAPTER 1927–1945 540
1, THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS OF NORTH 11 The Rise of Democracy
27 Cold War America
AMERICA, has been revised to adopt the most 1824–1840 205
1945–1954 568
recent dating of key trends, such
as the rise of agriculture; and
12 Afire with Faith
28 The Suburban Era
1820–1850 224
naming conventions, such 1945–1963 588
as the Ancestral Pueblo 13 The Old South
29 Civil Rights and Uncivil
(rather than the Anasazi). 1820–1860 243
Liberties
CHAPTER 16, TOTAL WAR 14 Western Expansion and 1947–1969 611
AND THE REPUBLIC, fea- the Rise of the Slavery
tures a new section on the Issue
30 The Vietnam Era
consequences of death and 1963–1975 631
1820–1850 262
suffering arising out of civil war. New material
15 The Union Broken
31 The Conservative Challenge
has been added on international diplomacy dur- 1976–1992 656
1850–1861 285
ing the war; and the account of the pivotal battle
of Gettysburg has been enlarged. 16 Total War and the Republic
32 The United States in a
Global Community
1861–1865 307
CHAPTERS 30–32, covering the 1960s to the pres- 1989–Present 681
ent, have been reorganized to allow for more 17 Reconstructing the Union
balanced, coherent, and up-to-date coverage. 1865–1877 332
Contents
1 THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS 2 OLD WORLDS, NEW
OF NORTH AMERICA WORLDS 1400–1600
AN AM E RICAN S T O RY: AN AMERICAN STORY:
The Power of a Hidden Past 1 Fishing Nets and Far Horizons 17
A Continent of Cultures 3
Eurasia and Africa in the Fifteenth Century 19
Cultures of Ancient Mexico 4 Europe’s Place in the World 19
Farmers, Potters, and Builders of the Southwest 5
Chiefdoms of the Eastern Woodlands 5
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX An Ancient Calendar 6
Life on the Great Plains 6
Survival in the Great Basin 7
The Plenty of the Pacific Northwest 8
The Frozen North 8

Innovations and Limitations 8

America’s Agricultural Gifts 8


Landscapers 9
The Influence of Geography and Climate 10
Animals and Illness 10

Crisis and Transformation 12

Enduring Peoples 12
North America on the Eve of Contact 13

CHAPTER SUMMARY 15 | ADDITIONAL READING 15 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 16

x | CONTENTS |
Africa and the Portuguese Wave 20
Sugar and the Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade 21
3 COLONIZATION AND
CONFLICT IN THE SOUTH
Spain in the Americas 22
1600–1750
The Spanish Beachhead in the Caribbean 22
Conquest of the Aztecs 24 AN AMERICAN STORY:
Outlandish Strangers 37
The Columbian Exchange 24
DUELING DOCUMENTS How Did Spaniards and Aztecs Spain’s North American Colonies 39
Remember First Contact? 25 The Founding of a “New” Mexico 40
The Crown Steps In 26 The Growth of Spanish Florida 40
The Search for North America’s Indian Popé and the Pueblo Revolt 41
Empires 27
English Society on the Chesapeake 42
Religious Reform Divides Europe 29
The Virginia Company 42
The Teachings of Martin Luther 29
Reform and a Boom in Tobacco 43
The Contribution of John Calvin 30
War with the Confederacy 44
French Huguenots and the Birth of Spanish Florida 30
The Founding of Maryland and the Renewal
The English Reformation 31 of Indian Wars 44

England’s Entry into America 31 Changes in English Policy in the Chesapeake 46

The Ambitions of Gilbert, Raleigh, and Wingina 32 Chesapeake Society in Crisis 46


A Second Roanoke—and Croatoan 33 Bacon’s Rebellion and Coode’s Rebellion 46
CHAPTER SUMMARY 34 | ADDITIONAL READING 35 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 36 From Servitude to Slavery 47

| CONTENTS | xi
Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade 47 The Founding of New England 63
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX Hip Mask from Benin 50 The Puritan Movement 63
A Changing Chesapeake Society 51 The Pilgrim Settlement at Plymouth Colony 64

From the Caribbean to the Carolinas 52 The Puritan Settlement at Massachusetts Bay 66

Paradise Lost 52 Stability and Order in Early New England 67


The Founding of the Carolinas 53 Communities in Conflict 69
Carolina, Florida, and the Southeastern Slave Wars 55 Goodwives and Witches 69
White, Red, and Black: The Search for Order 55 DUELING DOCUMENTS Accusations and Defenses in the
The Founding of Georgia 56 Salem Witchcraft Trials 70
The People in the Way 70
CHAPTER SUMMARY 57 | ADDITIONAL READING 58 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 58
Metacom’s War 72

The Mid-Atlantic Colonies 72


4 COLONIZATION AND English Rule in New York 73
CONFLICT IN THE NORTH The Founding of New Jersey 73
1600–1700 Quaker Odysseys 73

Patterns of Growth 74
AN AM E RICAN S T O RY:
Bears on Floating Islands 59 Quakers and Politics 74

France in North America 61 Adjustment to Empire 75


The Origins of New France 61 The Dominion of New England 75
New Netherlands, the Iroquois, and the Beaver Wars 62 Royal Authority in America in 1700 76
The Lure of the Mississippi 63 CHAPTER SUMMARY 77 | ADDITIONAL READING 78 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 78

xii | CONTENTS |
Enlightenment and Awakening in America
5 THE MOSAIC OF 93

The Enlightenment in America 93


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
The First Great Awakening 93
AMERICA 1689–1768 The Aftermath of the Great Awakening 94
AN AME R IC A N S T O RY:
The Tale of a Tattooed Traveler 79 Anglo-American Worlds of the Eighteenth
Century 94
Crisis and Transformation in Northern New English Economic and Social Development 95
Spain 81
Inequality in England and America 95
Defensive Expansion into Texas 81
Politics in England and America 96
Crisis and Rebirth in New Mexico 82
The Imperial System before 1760 96
Spanish California 83
CHAPTER SUMMARY 98 | ADDITIONAL READING 98 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 98
Women and the Law in New Spain and British North
America 84

Eighteenth-Century New France 85


6 IMPERIAL TRIUMPH,
Colonial Compromises 85 IMPERIAL CRISIS
France on the Gulf Coast 86 1754–1776
Slavery and Colonial Society in French Louisiana 86 AN AMERICAN STORY:
Imperial Rivalries 87 George Washington and the Half-King 99

Forces of Division in British North America 87 The Seven Years’ War 101

Immigration and Natural Increase 87 Years of Defeat 101


Moving into the Backcountry 87 A Shift in Policy 102
Social Conflict and the Frontier 88 Years of Victory 104
Eighteenth-Century Seaports 88 Postwar Expectations 104
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX The Hadley Chest 90
The Imperial Crisis 104

Slave Societies in the Eighteenth-Century South 91 Pontiac’s Rebellion 105


The Slave Family and Community 91 George Grenville’s New Measures 106
Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century British The Beginning of Colonial
North America 92 Resistance 107
Riots and Resolves 108
Repeal of the Stamp
Act 109
The Townshend
Acts 109
The Resistance
Organizes 110
The International
Sons of Liberty 111
The Boston
Massacre 111
DUELING
DOCUMENTS Who Was
to Blame for the Boston
Massacre? 112
Resistance Revived 113
The Empire Strikes Back 114

| CONTENTS | xiii
Toward the Revolution 114 The Decision for Independence 122

The First Continental Congress 115 The Second Continental Congress 122
The Last Days of the British Empire in America 115 The Declaration 122
The Fighting Begins 116 American Loyalists 123
Common Sense 116
The Fighting in the North 125
CHAPTER SUMMARY 118 | ADDITIONAL READING 118 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 119 The Two Armies at Bay 125
Laying Strategies 127
The Campaigns in New York and New Jersey 127
7 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE Capturing Philadelphia 128

AND THE AMERICAN Disaster for the British at Saratoga 128

REVOLUTION 1775–1783 The Turning Point 128

The American Revolution as a Global War 128


AN AM E RICAN S T O RY:
“Will He Fight?” 120 Winding Down the War in the North 129

xiv | CONTENTS |
Republican Society 147
The New Men of the Revolution 147
The New Women of the Revolution 148
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication 148
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX A Woman’s Compass 149
Seduction Literature and the Virtues of Women 150
Republican Motherhood and Education for
Women 150
The Attack on Aristocracy 150

From Confederation to Constitution 151


The Jay-Gardoqui Treaty 151
Shays’s Rebellion 151
Framing a Federal Constitution 152
The Virginia and New Jersey Plans 152
War in the West 129 The Deadlock Broken 153
The Home Front in the North 130 Ratification 154
The Struggle in the South 130 CHAPTER SUMMARY 156 | ADDITIONAL READING 157 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 157
The Siege of Charleston 131
The Partisan Struggle in the South 131
Greene Takes Command 132 9 THE EARLY REPUBLIC
African Americans in the Age of Revolution 133 1789–1824
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX Runaways 134
AN AMERICAN STORY:
The World Turned Upside Down 135 “I Felt Myself Mad with Passion” 158
Surrender at Yorktown 135 1789: A Social Portrait 160
CHAPTER SUMMARY 137 | ADDITIONAL READING 137 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 138 Semisubsistence and Commercial Economies 161
The Constitution and Commerce 162
8 CRISIS AND The New Government 163
CONSTITUTION 1776–1789 Washington Organizes the Government 163
> AN AME R IC A N S T O RY: Hamilton’s Financial Program 163
“These United States” 139 The Emergence of Political Parties 165
Republican Experiments 140 Americans and the French Revolution 165
The State Constitutions 141 Washington’s Neutral Course 166
From Congress to Confederation 141 The Federalists and the Republicans Organize 166
The 1796 Election 166
The Temptations of Peace 142
Federalist and Republican Ideologies 167
The Temptations of the West 142
Foreign Intrigues 142 The Presidency of John Adams 167

Disputes among the States 143 The Naval War with France 168
The More Democratic West 144 Suppression at Home 168
The Northwest Territory 144 Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions 168
Slavery and Sectionalism 145 The Election of 1800 168
Wartime Economic Disruption 146 John Marshall and Judicial Review 169

| CONTENTS | xv
The Political Culture of the Early Republic 170 The Decision for War 180
Popular Participation in Political Festivals 170 The British Invasion 182
DUELING DOCUMENTS Can This Marriage Be Saved? 171 America Turns Inward 182
African American Celebrations 172 Monroe’s Presidency 182
Women’s Civic Participation 172 CHAPTER SUMMARY 184 | ADDITIONAL READING 185 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 185

Jefferson in Power 172

The New Capital City 172


10 THE OPENING OF
Jefferson’s Philosophy 173
AMERICA 1815–1850
Jefferson’s Economic Policies 173 AN AMERICAN STORY:
From Boom to Bust with One-Day Clocks 186
Whites and Indians in the West 174
The National Market Economy 188
The Miami Confederacy Resists 174
The New Nationalism 188
Doubling the Size of the Nation 174
The Cotton Trade 188
Pressure on Indian Lands and Culture 176
The Transportation Revolution 189
White Frontier Society 176
Revolution in Communications 190
The Beginnings of the Second Great Awakening 176
The Postal System 190
The Prophet, Tecumseh, and the Pan-Indian
Movement 177 Agriculture in the Market Economy 190
John Marshall and the Promotion of Enterprise 190
The Second War for American Independence 178
The Embargo 179 A Restless Temper 192

Madison and the Young Republicans 180 Population Growth 192

xvi | CONTENTS |
The Restless Movement West 192 Social Mobility 201
Urbanization 193 A New Sensitivity to Time 201

The Rise of Factories 193 Prosperity and Anxiety 201

Technological Advances 194 The Panic of 1819 202


Textile Factories 194 CHAPTER SUMMARY 203 | ADDITIONAL READING 203 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 204
Lowell and the Environment 195
Industrial Work 196 11 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY
The Labor Movement 197 1824–1840
Sam Patch and a Worker’s “Art” 197
AN AMERICAN STORY:
Social Structures of the Market Society 198 “Wanted: Curling Tongs, Cologne,
and Silk-Stockings . . .” 205
Economic Specialization 198
Materialism 198 Equality, Opportunity, and the New Political
Culture of Democracy 207
Wealth and the Emerging Middle Class 199
The Election of 1824 208
DUELING DOCUMENTS The Market and Equality: She
Said, He Said 200 Social Sources of the New Politics 208

| CONTENTS | xvii
Jackson’s Rise to Power 210
President of the People 211
The Political Agenda in the Market Economy 211

Democracy and Race 211

Accommodate or Resist? 212


Trail of Tears 212
Free Blacks in the North 214
The African American Community 214
DUELING DOCUMENTS African Colonization: Hoping for
the Best and Suspecting the Worst 215
Racism Strikes a Deeper Root 216

The Nullification Crisis 216 The Temperance Movement 229


The Growing Crisis in South Carolina 216 Ideals of Women and the Family 230
The Nullifiers Nullified 217 Expanding Public Roles for Women 231
Protestants and Catholics 232
The Bank War 218
The National Bank and the Panic Visionaries 233
of 1819 218 The Unitarian Contribution 233
The Bank Destroyed 218 From Unitarianism to Transcendentalism 233
Jackson’s Impact on the Utopian Communities 234
Presidency 219
The Mormon Experience 235
“Van Ruin’s” Depression 219
The Whigs Triumph 220 Radical Reform 236

The Beginnings of the Abolitionist Movement 236


The Jacksonian Party System 221
The Spread of Abolitionism 237
Democrats, Whigs, and the Market 221
Opponents and Divisions 237
The Social Bases of the Two Parties 221
The Women’s Rights Movement 238
CHAPTER SUMMARY 222 | ADDITIONAL READING 223 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 223
The Schism of 1840 239

Reform Shakes the Party System 239


12 AFIRE WITH FAITH The Turn toward Politics 239
1820–1850 Abolitionism and the Party System 240
AN AM E RICAN S T O RY: CHAPTER SUMMARY 241 | ADDITIONAL READING 241 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 242
The Beechers and the Kingdom of God 224

The Transformation of American 13 THE OLD SOUTH 1820–1860


Evangelicalism 226
AN AMERICAN STORY:
Charles Grandison Finney and Modern
Where Is the Real South? 243
Revivalism 226
The Appeal of Evangelicalism 226 The Social Structure of the Cotton Kingdom 245

Women, Marriage, and Conversion 227 The Cotton Environment 245


The Significance of the Second Great The Boom Country Economy 246
Awakening 228 The Rural South 247
Revivalism and the Social Order 228 Distribution of Slavery 247
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX The Printer’s Angel 229 Slavery as a Labor System 248

xviii | CONTENTS |
Class Structure of the White South 248

The Slaveowners 249


14 WESTERN EXPANSION
Tidewater and Frontier 249
AND THE RISE OF THE
The Master at Home 250
SLAVERY ISSUE 1820–1850
The Plantation Mistress 250 AN AMERICAN STORY:
Strangers on the Great Plains 262
Yeoman Farmers 251
Poor Whites 252 Manifest (and Not So Manifest) Destiny 265

The Roots of the Doctrine 265


The Peculiar Institution 252
The Mexican Borderlands 266
Work and Discipline 253
The Texas Rebellion 267
Slave Maintenance 253
The Texas Republic 268
Resistance 253

Slave Culture 255


The Trek West 268

The Overland Trail 269


The Slave Family 255
Women on the Overland Trail 269
Songs and Stories of Protest and
Celebration 256 Indians and the Trail Experience 270
The Lord Calls Us Home 256
The Political Origins of Expansion 270
The Slave Community 257
Tyler’s Texas Ploy 270
Free Black Southerners 257
To the Pacific 271
Southern Society and the Defense Provoking a War 271
of Slavery 258 DUELING DOCUMENTS In What Country Did the U.S.-
The Virginia Debate of 1832 258 Mexican War Begin? 272
The Proslavery Argument 258 Indians and Mexicans 273
Closing Ranks 258 Opposition to the War 274
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX George Washington, Victory and Its Price 274
Slaveholder 259 The Rise of the Slavery Issue 275
CHAPTER SUMMARY 260 | ADDITIONAL READING 261 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 261

| CONTENTS | xix
The Collapse of the Second American
Party System 293
The Know-Nothings 294
The Republicans and Bleeding Kansas 295
The Caning of Charles Sumner 295
The Election of 1856 295

The Worsening Crisis 296

The Dred Scott Decision 296


The Lecompton
Constitution 297
The Lincoln-Douglas
Debates 297
The Beleaguered
South 298

New Societies in the West 276 The Road to War 299

Farming in the West 276 A Sectional


Election 299
The Gold Rush 276
Secession 300
Instant City: San Francisco 277
The Outbreak of War 301
The Migration from China 278
DUELING DOCUMENTS
California Genocide 278 Slavery and Secession 302
The Mormons in Utah 279 The Roots of a Divided
Mexican American Rights and Property 280 Nation 303

CHAPTER SUMMARY 304 | ADDITIONAL READING 305 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 306


Escape from Crisis 280

A Two-Faced Campaign 282

The Compromise of 1850 282


Away from the Brink 283
16 TOTAL WAR AND THE
CHAPTER SUMMARY 283 | ADDITIONAL READING 284 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 284 REPUBLIC 1861–1865
AN AMERICAN STORY:
15 THE UNION BROKEN A Rout at Bull Run 307

1850–1861 The Demands of Total War 309

Political Leadership 309


AN AM E RICAN S T O RY:
The Sacking of a Kansas Town 285 The Border States 311

Sectional Changes in American Society 287 Opening Moves 311

The Growth of a Railroad Economy 287 Blockade and Isolate 311


Railroads and the Prairie Environment 289 Grant in the West 312
Railroads and the Urban Environment 289 Eastern Stalemate 314
Rising Industrialization 290 Emancipation 315
Immigration 290 Moving toward Freedom 315
Southern Complaints 291 The Emancipation Proclamation 315
The Political Realignment of the 1850s 292 African Americans’ Civil War 316
The Kansas-Nebraska Act 292 Black Soldiers 316

xx | CONTENTS |
Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson 334
The Failure of Johnson’s Program 335
Johnson’s Break with Congress 336
The Fourteenth Amendment 336
The Election of 1866 337

Congressional Reconstruction 337

Post-Emancipation Societies in the Americas 338


The Land Issue 338
Impeachment 338

Reconstruction in the South 339

Black and White Republicans 339


Reforms under the New State Governments 339
Economic Issues and Corruption 340
The Confederate Home Front 317
Black Aspirations 340
The New Economy 317
Experiencing Freedom 340
New Opportunities for Southern Women 317
The Black Family 340
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX Face Value? 318
The Schoolhouse and the Church 341
Confederate Finance and Government 318
New Working Conditions 341
The Union Home Front 319 Planters and a New Way of Life 343
Government Finances and the Economy 319
The Abandonment of
A Rich Man’s War 320
Reconstruction 343
Women and the Workforce 320
The Grant Administration 343
Civil Liberties and Dissent 321
Growing Northern
Disillusionment 345
Gone to Be a Soldier 321
The Triumph of White Supremacy 346
Camp Life 321
The Disputed Election of 1876 346
Carnage at the Front 322
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX Dressed to
The Business of Grief 323
Kill 347
The Union’s Triumph 324 Racism and the Failure of
Reconstruction 347
The Battle of Gettysburg 324
Lincoln Finds His General 326 CHAPTER SUMMARY 349 | ADDITIONAL READING
349 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 350
War in the Balance 327
The Twilight of the Confederacy 328

CHAPTER SUMMARY 330 | ADDITIONAL READING 331 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 331 18 THE NEW SOUTH
AND THE TRANS-
17 RECONSTRUCTING THE MISSISSIPPI
UNION 1865–1877 WEST 1870–1890
AN AME R IC A N S T O RY: AN AMERICAN STORY:
A Secret Sale at Davis Bend 332 “Come West” 351

Presidential Reconstruction 334 The Southern Burden 352

Lincoln’s 10 Percent Plan 334 Tenancy and Sharecropping 353

| CONTENTS | xxi
Southern Industry 354 Boom and Bust in the West 366
The Sources of Southern Poverty 355 Mining Sets a Pattern 366

Life in the New South 356 The Transcontinental Railroad 366

Rural Life 356 Cattle Kingdom 367

The Church 356 The Final Frontier 368


Segregation 357 Farming on the Plains 368

Western Frontiers 357 A Plains Existence 368

Western Landscapes 358 The Urban Frontier 369

Indian Peoples and the Western Environment 358 The West and the World Economy 370

Whites and the Western Environment: Competing Packaging and Exporting the “Wild West” 370
Visions 359
CHAPTER SUMMARY 372 | ADDITIONAL READING 372 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 373

The War for the West 360

Contact and Conflict 361


Custer’s Last Stand—and the Indians’ 361 19 THE NEW INDUSTRIAL
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX A White Man’s View ORDER 1870–1900
of Custer’s Defeat 363
AN AMERICAN STORY:
Killing with Kindness 363
Scampering through America 374
Borderlands 364
The Development of Industrial Systems 375
Ethno-Racial Identity in the New West 365
Natural Resources and Industrial Technology 376
Systematic Invention 376
Transportation and Communication 377
Finance Capital 378
The Corporation 378
An International Pool of Labor 378

Railroads: America’s First Big Business 379

A Managerial Revolution 380


Competition and Consolidation 381
The Challenge of Finance 381

The Growth of Big Business 381

Strategies of Growth 382


Carnegie Integrates Steel 382
Rockefeller and the Great Standard Oil Trust 383
The Mergers of J. Pierpont Morgan 384
Corporate Defenders 384
Corporate Critics 384
The Costs of Doing Business 385

The Workers’ World 386

Industrial Work 387


Children, Women, and African Americans 388
The American Dream of Success 389

xxii | CONTENTS |
The Systems of Labor 389
Challenges to Convention 408
Early Unions 389
The Decline of “Manliness” 409
The Knights of Labor 389
HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX Digital Detecting 390 City Culture 409

The American Federation of Labor 391 Public Education in an Urban Industrial World 409
The Limits of Industrial Systems 391 Higher Learning and the Rise of the Professional 410
Management Strikes Again 392 Higher Education for Women 411

CHAPTER SUMMARY 393 | ADDITIONAL READING 393 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 394


A Culture of Consumption 412
Leisure 413
Arts and Entertainment 413

20 THE RISE OF AN URBAN CHAPTER SUMMARY 415 | ADDITIONAL READING 415 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 416

ORDER 1870–1900
21 THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
AN AME R IC A N S T O RY:
“The Dogs of Hell” 395 UNDER STRAIN AT HOME
A New Urban Age 397
AND ABROAD 1877–1900
The Urban Explosion 397 AN AMERICAN STORY:
“The World United at Chicago” 417
The Great Global Migration 397
Holding the City Together 398 The Politics of Paralysis 419

Bridges and Skyscrapers 399 Political Stalemate 419


Slum and Tenement 400 The Parties 419
The Issues 420
Running and Reforming the City 401
The White House from Hayes to Harrison 421
Boss Rule 401
Ferment in the States and Cities 422
Rewards, Accomplishments, and Costs 402
Nativism, Revivals, and the Social Gospel 403 The Revolt of the Farmers 422

The Social Settlement Movement 403 The Harvest of Discontent 422


The Origins of the Farmers’ Alliance 423
City Life 404
The Alliance Peaks 423
The Immigrant in the City 404
The Election of 1892 424
Urban Middle-Class Life 406
Victorianism and the Pursuit of Virtue 406 The New Realignment 425

DUELING DOCUMENTS City Scenes 407 The Depression of 1893 425

| CONTENTS | xxiii
DUELING DOCUMENTS What Should the Government
Do? 426 22 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
The Rumblings of Unrest 426 1890–1920
The Battle of the Standards 427
AN AMERICAN STORY:
Campaign and Election 428 Burned Alive in the City 442
The Rise of Jim Crow Politics 429
The Roots of Progressive Reform 444
The African American Response 429
Progressive Beliefs 444
McKinley in the White House 430
The Pragmatic Approach 444
Visions of Empire 431 The Progressive Method 445
Imperialism, European-Style The Search for the Good Society 446
and American 431
Poverty in a New Light 446
The Shapers of American Imperialism 432
Expanding the “Woman’s Sphere” 446
Dreams of a Commercial Empire 434
Social Welfare 447
The Imperial Moment 435 Woman Suffrage 448
Mounting Tensions 435
Controlling the Masses 450
The Imperial War 436
Stemming the Immigrant Tide 450
Peace and the Debate over Empire 437
The Curse of Demon Rum 450
From Colonial War to Colonial Rule 438
Prostitution 451
An Open Door in China 439
“For Whites Only” 451
CHAPTER SUMMARY 440 | ADDITIONAL READING 441 | SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 441 HISTORIAN’S TOOLBOX Mementos of Murder 452

xxiv | CONTENTS |
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A wood-burning heating stove common
throughout Alaska and the Yukon is made from a
gasoline tank turned on its side and fitted with legs of
iron pipe.
We have other live stock on board. Down in the hold are eight
hundred chickens bound for the hen fanciers of interior Alaska. They
crow night and morning, and with the baaing of the sheep and the
mooing of the cattle we seem to be in a floating barnyard. The barge
is swung this way and that, and whenever it touches the bank, the
sheep pile up one over the other, some of the cattle are thrown from
their feet, and the chickens cackle in protest.
The Selkirk burns wood, and we stop several times a day to take
on fuel, which is wheeled to the steamer in barrows over a
gangplank from the piles of cord wood stacked up on the banks. At
many of the stops the only dwelling we see is the cabin of the wood
chopper, who supplies fuel for a few dollars a cord. The purser
measures with a ten-foot pole the amount in each pile loaded on
board. Going down stream the Selkirk burns about one cord an hour,
and in coming back against the current the consumption is often four
times as much. The wood is largely from spruce trees from three to
six inches in diameter. Many of the little islands we pass are covered
with the stumps of trees cut for the steamers, but most of the wood
stations are on the mainland, the cutting having been done along the
banks or in the valleys back from the river.
Except where we take on fuel there are no settlements on the
Yukon between White Horse and Dawson. The country is much the
same as it was when the cave dwellers, the ancestors of the
Eskimos, wrought with their tools of stone. For a distance of four
hundred and sixty miles we do not see a half dozen people at any
stop of the steamer, although here and there are deserted camps
with the abandoned cabins of prospectors and wood choppers. One
such is at Chisana, near the mouth of the White River. The town was
built during the rush to the Chisana gold mines, and it was for a time
a thriving village, with a government telegraph office, a two-story
hotel, and a log stable that could accommodate a dozen horses and
numerous sled dogs. The White Pass and Yukon Company built the
hotel and the stable, expecting to bring the miners in by its steamers
and to send them into the interior with horses and dogs. It did a good
business until the gold bubble burst and the camp “busted.” To-day
the Chisana Hotel is deserted, all the cabins except that of the wood
chopper are empty, and under the wires leading into one of them is a
notice: “Government telegraph, closed August 3, 1914.”
The woodman’s cabin is open. A horseshoe is nailed over the
door and a rifle stands on the porch at the side. On the wall at the
back of the hut a dog harness hangs on a peg. The skin of a freshly
killed bear is tacked up on one side, and bits of rabbit skins lie here
and there on the ground. The cabin itself is not more than eight feet
in height. It is made of logs, well chinked with mud and with earth
banked up about the foundation. There is a weather-strip of bagging
nailed to the door posts. The door is a framework filled in with pieces
of wooden packing boxes for panels.
Entering, we find that there are two rooms. One is a kitchen, and
the other a living room and bedroom combined. Three cots, made of
poles and covered with blankets, form the beds. There are some
benches for seats and a rude table stands under the window.
Various articles of clothing hang from the walls or lie upon the floor.
In the kitchen a table is covered with unwashed dishes. There is a
guitar on the shelf near the stove and a pack of cards on a ledge in
the logs. The whole is by no means inviting, but I doubt not it is a fair
type of the home of the prospectors and woodsmen throughout this
whole region.
I have seen most of the great rivers of the world—the Rhine, the
Danube, the Volga, the Nile, the Zambesi, the Yangtse, and the
Hoang Ho. I know the Hudson, the Mississippi, the Ganges, the
Indus, and the Irrawaddy, as well as the Amazon and the Parana,
and many other streams of more or less fame. But nowhere else
have I seen scenery like that along the Yukon. We seem to have
joined the army of early explorers and to be steaming through a new
world. We pass places

Where the mountains are nameless,


And the rivers all run God knows where.

Much of the country is semi-desert, but some of it is as green as the


valley of the Nile. In places the hills, sloping almost precipitously
back from the river, are wrinkled with dry waterways filled with
scrubby forests. In others there are series of ledges rising one over
the other, making great terraces from the edge of the stream to the
tops of the mountains.
The Yukon changes its course like the Yellow River of China.
Now we pass through gorges of silt where the sand walls rise above
us to the height of a twenty-story office building; and now swing
around beds where we seem to be walled in by the cuttings made by
the water. The hills are composed of earth washings, and from year
to year the snaggy teeth of old Father Time have been gouging long
furrows out of their sides. These furrows have caught the moisture,
forests of small evergreens have grown up in them, and the
landscape for miles looks as though it had been ploughed by the
gods and drilled in with these crops of green trees. This makes the
country, when seen from a distance, seem to be cultivated. There is
a scanty grass between the patches of forests, and the whole is like
a mighty farm planted by the genii of the Far North.
As we go down the river the scenery changes. Here the banks
are almost flat and are covered with bushes. There on the opposite
side they are of a sandy glacial alluvial formation, perfectly bare. At
times the soil is so friable that it rolls down in avalanches, and a blast
from our steam whistle starts the sand flowing. It makes one think of
the loess cliffs on the plains of North China. Those cliffs contain
some of the richest fertilizing matter on earth, and their dust, carried
by the wind, enriches the country upon which it drops as the silt from
the Abyssinian highlands enriches the Nile Valley.
The soil from the upper Yukon, on the other hand, is poorer than
that which surrounds the Dead Sea at the lower end of the Jordan. It
lacks fertilizing qualities, and some of it rests on a bed of prehistoric
ice, which carries off the rainfall, leaving no moisture for plant life. A
geological expert in our party says it is as though the land were laid
down on plates of smooth copper tilted toward the valleys to carry
the rain straight to the rivers. He tells me that the region has only ten
or twelve inches of water a year, or a rainfall similar to that of
California in the neighbourhood of Los Angeles. He says also that
sixty-five per cent. of the water that falls finds its way to the streams.
The upper Yukon River in places is only a few
hundred feet from bank to bank, and in others as wide
as a lake. Throughout most of its length it is dotted
with islands in all stages of formation.
The Yukon twists and turns in great loops and
curves throughout its entire length, and at Five Finger
Rapids presents a stretch of water that can be
navigated only by the exercise of the utmost skill in
piloting.
Much of our way down the Yukon is in and out among islands.
The stream is continually building up and tearing down the land
through which it flows, and the islands are in every stage of
formation. Here they are sand bars as bare as the desert of Sahara;
there they are dusted with the green of their first vegetation. A little
farther on are patches of land with bushes as high as your waist, and
farther still are islands covered with forest. Each island has its own
shade of green, from the fresh hue of the sprouts of a wheatfield to
the dark green mixed with silver that is common in the woods of
Norway and Sweden. Not a few of the islands are spotted with
flowers. Some from which the trees have been cut are covered with
fireweed, and a huge quilt of delicate pink rises out of the water, the
black stumps upon it standing out like knots on the surface. Such
islands are more gorgeous than the flower beds of Holland.
In places the Yukon is bordered by low hills, behind which are
mountains covered with grass, and, still farther on, peaks clad in
their silvery garments of perpetual snow. At one place far back from
the river, rising out of a park of the greenest of green, are rocky
formations that look like castles, as clean cut and symmetrical as
any to be seen on the banks of the Rhine. Down in the river itself are
other great rocks, more dangerous than that on which the Lorelei sat
and with her singing lured the sailors on to their destruction.
One such formation is known as the “Five Fingers.” It consists of
five mighty masses of reddish-brown rock that rise to the height of a
six-story building directly in the channel through which the steamers
must go. The current is swift and the ship needs careful piloting to
keep it from being dashed to pieces against the great rocks. The
captain guides the barge of cattle to the centre of the channel. He
puts the barge and the steamer in the very heart of the current and
we shoot with a rush between two of these mighty fingers of rock
down into the rapids below. As we pass, it seems as though the
rocks are not more than three feet away on each side of our
steamer.
A little farther on we ride under precipices of sand that extend
straight up from the water as though they were cut by a knife, with
strata as regular as those of a layer cake. They seem to be made of
volcanic ash or glacial clay. They rise to the height of the Washington
Monument and are absolutely bare of vegetation, save for the lean
spruce and pine on the tops.
We pass the “Five Fingers” between one and two o’clock in the
morning, when the sun is just rising. This is the land of the midnight
sun, and there are places not far from here where on one or two
days of the year the sun does not sink below the horizon. Even here,
at midnight it is hard to tell sunrise from sunset. There is a long
twilight, and the glories of the rising and the setting sun seem almost
commingled. At times it has been light until one o’clock in the
morning, and I have been able to make notes at midnight at my
cabin windows.
There is a vast difference between this region and the rainy
districts near the Pacific coast. We have left the wet lands, and we
are now in the dry belt of the great Yukon Valley. The air here is as
clear as that of Colorado. The sky is deep blue, the clouds hug the
horizon, and we seem to be on the very roof of the world, with the
“deep deathlike valleys below.” We are in the country of Robert
Service, the poet of the Yukon, and some of his verses come to our
minds:

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow


That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o’ the world piled on top.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE CAPITAL OF THE YUKON

I write of Dawson, the capital of Yukon Territory, the metropolis of


the Klondike, and for years the richest mining camp of the world. In
the height of its glory it had more than thirty thousand inhabitants,
and in the region about there have been more than sixty thousand
people. To-day the population of the town is less than one thousand.
With the gradual exhaustion of the gold the population is decreasing,
and it may be only a question of years when the precious metal will
all have been taken from the ground and the chief reason for a city
here will have disappeared. One of the great hopes of the people is
in the discovery of rich quartz mines or the mother lode from which
all the loose gold came. The hills have been prospected in every
direction, but so far no such find has been made.
Dawson lies just where it was located when gold was
discovered. The houses still stand on the banks of the Klondike and
Yukon rivers where the two streams meet. The town is laid out like a
checkerboard, with its streets crossing one another at right angles.
They climb the sides of the hills and extend far up the Klondike to the
beginning of the mountains of gravel built up by the dredgers. The
public roads are smooth, and the traffic includes automobiles and
heavy draft wagons. There are more than fifty automobiles in use,
and two hundred and fifty-five miles of good country highways have
been made by the government in the valleys near by.
Dawson has been burned down several times since the great
gold rush, and vacant lots covered with the charred remains of
buildings are still to be seen. Most of the stores are of one story, and
log cabins of all sizes are interspersed with frame houses as
comfortable as those in the larger towns of the States. Scores of the
homes have little gardens about them, and not a few have
hothouses in which vegetables and flowers are raised under glass.
Empty houses and boarded-up stores here and there show the
decline in population.
This is the seat of government of Yukon Territory and the district
headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Here the
judges hold court, and here the commissioner has his residence.
The government house is a large yellow frame building with a wide
porch. In front of it is a beautiful lawn, and beds of pansies border
the walk that leads to the entrance. At the rear are gardens filled in
summer with the most delicious vegetables grown in the Yukon, and
near by are the hothouses that supply the tomatoes and cucumbers
for the commissioner’s table.
Yukon Territory is next door to Alaska, and its resources and
other characteristics are so similar that it might be called Canadian
Alaska. Its southern boundary is within thirty miles of the Pacific
Ocean, and the territory extends to the Arctic. It is a thousand miles
long and in places three hundred miles wide, and it comprises
almost as much land as France. It is one third the size of Alaska
from which it is separated by the international boundary, which
crosses the Yukon River about one hundred miles from here.
The Dawson of to-day has none of the earmarks of the Dawson
of the past. It has now several churches, a city library, radio
concerts, women’s clubs, sewing societies, and afternoon teas. The
palatial bars where beer cost three dollars a bottle and champagne
twenty dollars a pint have long since disappeared. The hymns of the
Salvation Army have taken the place of the songs of the dance halls,
and in the hotel where I am staying is a Christian Science lecturer
who is drawing large crowds.
The order on the streets is as good as that of any town in New
England, and educationally and socially the place is the equal of any
of its size in the States. There is still a large proportion of miners, but
most of them are connected with the great dredging and hydraulic
operations, and the independent prospectors are few. There are
many business men and officials, as well as lawyers and doctors.
Now and then Indians come in to sell their furs to the traders. The
stores have large stocks of goods and handle most of the trade of
the Yukon and some of that of eastern Alaska.
For the first few years after gold was discovered in the Klondike
everything was paid for in gold dust or nuggets, and the store-
keepers had their gold scales, upon which they weighed out the
price of their goods. Every miner then carried a gold poke, and paid
for a cigar or a drink with a pinch of dust. To-day the only place
where one can use any coin less than a quarter is at the post-office,
and there the change is in stamps.
Visiting a grocery store, I saw cantaloupes selling at seventy-five
cents apiece, chickens at three dollars, and eggs at a dollar a dozen.
These are the summer prices. In the heart of midwinter, when the
hens go on a strike, eggs soar to five dollars a dozen. In early days
they sometimes sold for eighteen dollars, and were cheap at one
dollar apiece. In a butcher shop hard by I saw salmon that had been
brought seventeen hundred miles up the Yukon, and the finest of
porterhouse steaks. As I have said, the beef has to be brought in
from southern Canada or the States, and the freight rates are so
high that the butchers cannot afford to import skinny animals.
Indeed, I am told that the transportation charges are quite as much
as the first cost of the meat.
“All game here is cheap,” said a butcher I talked with. “We sell
moose and caribou steaks and roasts at twenty or twenty-five cents
a pound. As to bear, the people won’t eat it; it is too tough. In the
winter we have plenty of caribou. The Indians kill deer in great
numbers and bring in the hind quarters, peddling them about from
house to house. The fore parts of the animals they feed to their
dogs. This country is also full of grouse and ptarmigan, and any one
can get game in the winter if he will go out and hunt for it.”
The commissioner of the territory tells me that the Yukon is one
of the best big game regions of the North American continent. All
shooting is restricted and licensed, and, so far, there is no indication
of the animals dying out. There is an abundance of moose, mountain
sheep, and mountain goats, and ten thousand caribou may
sometimes be seen moving together over the country. Such a drove
will not turn aside for anything. One can go moose hunting in an
automobile within twenty-five miles of Dawson. The moose are
among the largest of the world. Their horns have often a spread of
five or six feet, and it is not uncommon to kill caribou with antlers
having more than thirty points.
At a drug store I paid a quarter for a bottle of pop. The proprietor,
a pioneer gold miner, had a store in Pittsburgh before he came to
hunt for gold in the Klondike. He did fairly well mining, but decided
there was more money in drugs.
“My prices are small, compared with what I got when I first
started business,” he said. “I used to charge a dollar for a mustard
plaster, a dollar for a two-grain quinine pill, and fifty cents an ounce
for castor oil. I sold my Seidlitz powders at a dollar apiece, and
flaxseed for thirty-two dollars a pound. The latter was used largely to
make a tea for coughs and colds. I remember a cheechako, or
tenderfoot, who came in during those days. He asked me for ten
cents’ worth of insect powder. I looked him over and said: ‘Ten cents!
Why man, I wouldn’t wrap the stuff up for ten cents.’ The cheechako
turned about and replied: ‘You needn’t wrap it up, stranger; just pour
it down the back of my neck.’”
Speaking of the old-time prices, I hear stories everywhere as to
the enormous cost of things in the days of the gold rush. All tinned
vegetables were sold at five dollars a can, and a can of meats cost a
third of an ounce of gold dust or nuggets. At one time, the usual
price of all sorts of supplies and provisions was one dollar a pound.
One man tells me he bought an eight-hundred-pound outfit in
Dawson for eight hundred dollars. It consisted of provisions and
supplies of all kinds, shovels and nails costing the same as corn
meal and rice. At that time flour sold for fifty dollars a sack, firewood
for forty dollars a cord, and hay for from five hundred to eight
hundred dollars a ton.
Many who live in Dawson in winter spend their
summers in little cabins in the country or on the
islands in the river. Some of them grow flowers and
vegetables for the Dawson market in gardens along
the river.
Though not many degrees south of the Arctic
Circle, the official residence of the Commissioner of
Yukon Territory has in summer green lawns, shade
trees, and beds of flowers that thrive in the long hours
of sunlight.
Dawson is so far north on the globe that some
days in midsummer have only one hour of darkness.
This photograph of Mr. Carpenter and a miner’s pet
bear was taken after ten o’clock at night.
I heard last night of Jack McQuestion, who had a log cabin store
at Forty Mile, a camp on the Yukon. One day a miner came in and
asked for a needle. He was handed one and told that the price was
seventy-five cents. The man took the needle between his thumb and
finger, looked hard at it, and then said to McQuestion:
“Say, pard, ain’t you mistaken? Can’t you make it a bit cheaper?
That’s an awful price for a needle.”
“No,” said the storekeeper, “I’d like to if I could, but great snakes,
man, just think of the freight!”
Another story is told of a miner who wanted to buy some sulphur.
The price asked was five dollars a pound.
“Why man,” said he, “I only paid five cents a pound for it in
Seattle last month.”
“Yes, and you can get it for nothing in hell,” was the reply.
Here in Dawson the days are now so long that I can read out-of-
doors at any time during the twenty-four hours. I can take pictures at
midnight by giving a slight time exposure, and in the latter part of
June one can make snapshots at one in the morning. It is not difficult
to get excellent photographs between nine and eleven P. M. and at
any time after two o’clock in the morning. The sun now sets at about
eleven P. M. and comes up again about two hours later. The twilight
is bright and at midnight the sky is red. Last night I saw a football
match that did not end until after ten o’clock, and moving pictures
were taken near the close of the game.
I find that the light has a strange effect upon me. The sleepiness
that comes about bedtime at home is absent, and I often work or talk
until midnight or later without realizing the hour. The air is
invigorating, the long hours of light seem life-giving, and I do not
seem to need as much sleep as at home.
The weather just now is about as warm as it is in the States. The
grass is green, the trees are in full leaf, there are flowers
everywhere, and the people are going about in light clothing. The
women go out in the evening with bare arms and necks, and the
men play football, baseball, and tennis in their shirt sleeves. There
are many bare-footed children, and all nature is thriving under the
hot twenty-two-hour sun of the Arctic.
Many people here declare that they like the winters better than
the summers, and that they all—men, women, and children—thrive
on the cold. The pilot of the boat on which I came in from White
Horse tells me he would rather spend a winter on the Upper Yukon
than at his old home in Missouri. He says that one needs heavy
woollen clothing and felt shoes or moccasins. When the
thermometer falls to fifty or sixty degrees below zero he has to be
careful of his face, and especially his nose. If it is not covered it will
freeze in a few minutes. At twenty degrees below zero the climate is
delightful. The air is still and dry, and the people take short walks
without overcoats. At this temperature one needs a fur coat only
when riding. Cows and horses are kept in warmed stables and get
along very well. Horses are seldom used when the thermometer is
fifty degrees below zero. At that temperature the cold seems to burn
out their lungs. Still, it is said that there are horses that are wintered
in the open near Dawson. They have been turned out in the fall to
shift for themselves and have come back in the spring “hog fat.”
The old timers here tell me that the dreariness of the long nights
of the winter has been greatly exaggerated. During that season most
of the earth is snow-clad, and the light of the sky, the stars, and the
moon reflected from the snow makes it so that one can work outside
almost all the time. True, it is necessary to have lights in the schools,
and in the newspaper offices the electricity is turned off only between
11:15 in the morning and 2:15 in the afternoon. The morning
newspaper men who sleep in the day do not see the sun except
upon Sunday.
In the coldest part of the winter the snow makes travelling
difficult. It is then so dry that the dogs pulling the sleds have to work
as hard as though they were going through sand. In March and April
the snow is not so powdery and sleighing is easier. The ideal winter
weather is when the thermometer registers fifteen or twenty-five
degrees below zero, with a few hours of sunlight. The most
depressing time is from the middle of December until the end of the
first week in January. Then comes the most severe cold, and the sun
may not be seen at all.
It is this midwinter period that is described in many of the
gruesome poems of the Yukon, especially in Service’s “Cremation of
Sam McGee.” You remember how Sam McGee left his home in
sunny Tennessee to roam around the North Pole, where:

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him
like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that he’d sooner live
in hell.

The poet describes how Sam froze to death on the trail above
Dawson and how, before he died, he made his partner promise to
“cremate his last remains.” This was done, between here and White
Horse, on the “marge of Lake Lebarge.” There the frozen corpse was
stuffed into the furnace of the derelict steamer Alice May and a great
fire built. Sam McGee’s partner describes “how the heavens scowled
and the huskies howled, and the winds began to blow,” and how,
“though he was sick with dread, he bravely said: I’ll just take a peep
inside.’” He then opens the furnace door:

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the
furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said:
“Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and
storm——.
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve
been warm.”
Yukon Territory is said to have thirty-eight million
acres of land that can be utilized for crops or grazing.
Above the Arctic Circle red-top grass, which is used
as hay, grows almost as high as a man.
Land on the upper Yukon will yield six or seven
tons of potatoes an acre. Sometimes prices are so
high that one crop from this seventeen-acre field has
brought in ten thousand dollars.

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