Town of monson in central maine has a big problem. The town has bounced back from a fire that swept through its downtown, destroying many of the buildings in 1860, and it is recovering from the trauma of the american civil war. The civil war ended just seven years earlier, in 1865. More than 10 of townspeople served in the civil war, and at least six of them died. The problem, even as the town of monson celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding, is that so many of its young people are moving away. In the census of 1870, monson was listed as having 604 residents. 604. Out of curiosity, how many of you are from places with more than 604 residents, show of hands . Virtually everyone. How many of you went to high school with more than 604 people . Again, virtually everyone. Monson was a tiny place, and that meant that every departure, every person who moved away from home, hurt. Their absence was noted. In 1872, when townspeople gathered to celebrate turning 50, the speaker at the event tried to put a good spin on things, but he admitted, quote, this constant immigration of our citizens, and especially of the young, seems discouraging. Its worth noting that this problem was not new. In new england, young people had been moving away from home for centuries. In several parts of new england, often, if you were not the child who inherited the family farm, you had to move away to find land. The frontier of maine was becoming one of the places people moved to. This map was from about 1820. Ive marked the location of monson, maine, with a star, and i love this map in part because it shows just how little was known about the interior of maine in 1820. Monson would be founded there two years after this map was created. There is plenty of information about Coastal Maine, but virtually nothing about the interior of the state. This was truly the nations Northern Frontier in 1820. Monsons founders were part of a tidal wave of movement in the first half of the 1800s. During the first half of the 1800s, almost half of all americans crossed state boundaries to change residence. Almost half of all americans crossed state boundaries to change residence. This was one of, if not the most mobile period in American History. In previous classes, we talked about the majority of settlers who headed west, but a Smaller Group moved on to the Northern Frontier. Monson was founded in 1822 by settlers from massachusetts and Southern Maine who came pushing north into the ancestral homeland of the wabanaki people. This map shows you the division of that land, wabanaki land, into townships. I will point out a couple of things. You can see monson, circled on the left. It has been divided between two educational institutions, Hebron Academy and Monson Academy. Hebron was located in Southern Maine and Monson Academy in monson, massachusetts. And perhaps you will note some of the other educational institutions who have been given, granted by the legislature, townships. Bowdoin college. Williams college. The massachusetts medical society. This was a common practice. The legislature would grant townships, would grant land on the frontier to educational institutions or philanthropic societies. They could then sell off the land to individual settlers and use the proceeds to pay their expenses. Also note how close monson is to the center of maine. You can see at the very top of the map the efforts of maine to fix the people in place can be seen, on land reserved for indians. Lets fastforward 50 years back to 1872, where we started. Monson existed because people had been willing to pick up roots and relocate. Now, in 1872, the town was concerned because so many of its residents were leaving home. And monson was not alone. Many rural places throughout the United States were confronting the same problem. Some rural people were moving west, into the far west or midwest, in search of better farmland, so rural people moving to new rural areas. But others were leaving rural life entirely. This was a trend that gained steam in the 1840s and never stopped. You are looking here at census data from the u. S. Census bureau. This data shows us some important things about American Life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I want to get your thoughts about what stands out in this census information. Whats noteworthy . Who has some comments about what this shows us about American Life . Yes. Please. There is a very direct linear trend that as more people move from rural to urban, every 10 years it seems to be twofold. Prof. Witmer excellent, thank you. Yes. So, the trend that i noticed is that it actually starts to show the Industrial Revolution in the United States, so it kind of shows the increase of a middle class, because when you become a middleclass citizen, they typically move towards more urban areas, so you can see that as rural decreases, urban increases, which shows the rise of probably jobs increasing in those urban areas, as is the lack of need to work on farms. Prof. Witmer excellent, thank you. Let me highlight a couple things. Thank you for those good comments. One, until 1920, most americans were rural people. They lived in the countryside. So, if you want to understand the 19th century american experience, you have to understand the rural experience. But as was just pointed out, a big part of that experience is the Steady Movement of people into the city. Now, actually, in hard numbers, the rural population was increasing. But you could see that rural people as a percentage of overall American Population is declining. It is declining decade by decade by decade. We also know that many rural people, especially ambitious young people, were moving to the cities. Historians of the midwest have described a pipeline from the farms to the cities by the end of the 1800s. I should note that rural was defined by the Census Bureau at this time as any place with fewer than 2500 residents, so these were truly small places, places like monson, maine. This could be terribly hard for the people who remained behind. Just think about it. Its hard enough living in a college town like harrisonburg where, every year, people that you care about graduate and leave and dont come back. How rude, how thoughtless. But at least here, thousands of new people show up every year to replace you, not that they can, but here they come, every year. Imagine what it would be like if every year the seniors graduated and went away and no freshman ever came to take your place. One historian has argued that population loss, especially the loss of young people to cities and to the west, raised fears among some rural northeastern is that not just their town, but their way of life was fading. It was clear that cities were culturally powerful in shaping tastes and fashions and values. Additionally, over the previous few decades, the differences between the city and the country and the differences between city people and country people had been increasing. So, let me just give you one way in which this takes place. Urban historians have shown that during the years before the civil war, there were many animals and significant agriculture in major american cities. For example, in 1820, there were an estimated, by one estimate, 20,000 hogs living in the settled portions of manhattan. 20,000 hogs roaming the streets of manhattan, one hog for every five people. And this was the case, hogs roaming the streets of the city, until the middle decades of the 19th century. Middleclass gentrifiers began to restrict urban agriculture in the name of public health. Last week, we studied the rising wealth and growing inequalities of the gilded age. As the United States industrialized on a grand scale after the civil war, cities amassed more power and more economic clout. They became economic hubs. For example, rural people could now buy urban goods through the mail. Last week on sunday afternoon, i ordered two books on amazon, and they showed up at my doorstep the next day. It was almost as if jeff bezos was standing outside my house just ready to give me whatever i asked. Thats impressive, but its worth noting that sears got there first. Based in chicago. You can order by mail an incredible variety of merchandise, from the city, that made its way into the country. Some urban people, struck by the economic clout of chicago and new york, compared their relationship with rural areas the relationship between an Imperial Capital and its colonies. City people, many of them, by the way, born and raised in the countryside, began to popularize negative stereotypes of country people, some stereotypes that we still recognize today. Here is a cartoon that was published in a new york city magazine in 1890. It imagines what would be the case if rural people elected a country person as president of the United States. We talked last week about the growing political activity of people in the countryside, the farmers alliance, the populist party. What negative stereotypes of country people do you see in this image . What do you notice . Tiffany . I mean, they dont look really refined. Like, on the top, you can see a guy whittling a stick. His feet are on the table. We dont exactly think of that is professional now, so i dont think they thought of it as professional back then. Prof. Witmer these people are not fit to wield political power, yet here they are. The caption reads, the great political future of the farmer, a glance ahead to the time when the hayseed runs the government. Has anyone ever heard the term hayseed . This term, this insult for a country person was point in 1851 in the novel moby dick. Who is the author of moby dick . Anyone know . Hermann melville. Prof. Witmer thank you, and where is he from . I dont know. [laughter] prof. Witmer new york city. Hayseed. A provincial, a rustic. Urban people had so many putdowns they could use to mock rural people. We know a couple others that had been used for centuries, bumpkin, hick. Urban americans began to use hick as an adjective as well, as in, that guy is from a hick town. And they invented a new insult for country people, rube, during the 1800s. But it went both ways. Last week when we talked about the populist movement, i showed you this cartoon. Country people fought back with their own stereotypes about city people. You can see it happening in this cartoon, where the populist movement warned that urban fatcats were exploiting hardworking country people. Country people also came up with insulting nicknames for city people. We still use some of them today. If i were to ask you, whats the name of someone from the city who goes out into the countryside and sticks out like a sore thumb, doesnt have the knowledge or the skills to survive in the country, what would you call that kind of person . A city slicker. Thats exactly right. That insult for urban folks was first used, that we know, in indiana in the early 1900s. Many americans at this time thought of urbanrural as a dichotomy, fundamentally different and even competing things. And we still do, often, dont we . Heres a cartoon from just a few years ago that is quite similar to the populist cartoon i just showed you. Urban california is depicted as elitist, demanding, grabby. Give unto us your water, your bountiful harvests, exploiting the hard work of farmers and other rural people. Our political conflicts in the United States today often seem to map onto the urbanrural divide. This is familiar, right . Red states, republican, associated with its own distinctive, rural way of life, its own culture. Opposing blue states, democratic america, with its own distinctive urban culture. And we know from recent survey data that Many Americans, whether in the country or the city, feel misunderstood or disliked by people from other kinds of places. Here is survey data from the pew research center. It says that 63 of urban americans feel that their communities are looked down on and misunderstood by people in other types of communities. The same is true for 56 of rural people. And suburbanites dont feel as looked down upon or misunderstood. 70 of rural people say that most people who dont live in the same type of community has them dont understand the problems that they face. In light of all this, you might think that rural people always responded negatively and defensively to the growing power of cities. Differences were multiplying. There was resentment and distrust. But in the rest of todays class, i want to show you another aspect of the relationship between city and countryside in the late 19th century. Historians have shown that it is misleading to only focus on the tensions and the conflict. There was also a symbiotic relationship between city and countryside. We see that, for example, in this book by the historian william cronin, which explored how chicago and many western, rural places remade themselves by working together to produce globally desirable commodities, like grain, lumber, and meat. So, as cities grew, sparking concerns about rural depopulation and the declining way of life, rural people recognized that cities might help them solve their problems. Looking at all the census numbers i showed you earlier might seem to suggest that decline in the countryside was inevitable. Decade by decade, cities rise, rural places fade. But, as you know, in this course, we are trying throughout American History to read history forward. In hindsight, most developments seem inevitable, right, because they happened, but when we step back into the shoes of rural people in 1870 or 1900, when we read what they wrote and try to see the world through their eyes, we often find a surprising degree of optimism about their ability to use urban resources for their own purposes. This actually moved beyond the ruralurban division to work across other supposed oppositions, such as local and global. Rural people often worked to strengthen local places. They learned how to weave the fabric of locality from imported as well as indigenous materials. We could look in many places to see this happening, but i want to focus on how it all played out in the small town where we began today of monson, maine. Why monson . Good question. A few more people lived in chicago than in monson. But until 1920, more people lived in places like monson than in places like chicago. There were still thousands of small towns across the United States. Why this particular small town . The short answer is that i care personally much more about this particular small town than i do about those thousands of other small towns. Theres nothing very special about monson, maine, from an academic point of view, which is actually helpful for studying broader developments in american rural life. This was not an unusual place, so it can open a window into changes in other similar small, rural places. But for me, theres a lot thats special about monson from a personal point of view, because this is the place where i spent the first 18 years of my life. This is my hometown. Included in this 1889 lithograph, this birds eye view of monson are the house where i grew up, the church on main street where my father pastored, the lake where i learned how to swim, not very well. I failed swim lessons. Thats another story. The shop where my brothers and i bought penny candy, and the hills where i went camping with my parents, and where they now live. I know the mean streets of monson from firsthand experience. [laughter] prof. Witmer yep, thats me in the center on the bike i got for my birthday. No, you are not seeing double. On the right is my identical twin brother on his identical bike [laughter] prof. Witmer dressed identically, and also badly in need of a haircut. This is the view from the house where my parents now live, on homer hill, where we used to cut down Christmas Trees and go camping in the summer. This is the view from my parents thermometer one cold winter morning, which could explain why so few people lived in monson. Its very cold in the winter. Has anyone ever heard of monson . No . Didnt think so. Once in a great while, i will mention my hometown and someone will say, i know it, ive been there, and its almost always because of this. Monson is on the appalachian trail. Its at the beginning or end, depending on if you are hiking north or south, the hundred mile wilderness, which is the last hundred miles of the trail before you get to mount katana. Many come through monson, where they stock up, take a muchneeded shower, and prepare for the final push, or recuperate from just having hiked the hundred mile wilderness. Just last summer, a friend of mine spent a day or two in monson as he section hiked the appalachian trail. I love this town, i love monson, but like all those young people who are leaving monson and other rural places in 1872, i moved away when i turned 18, and i never moved back. Many of my friends also left town. Like other rural places in central maine and throughout the United States, monson has faced hard times. The furniture mill shut down. That was the backbone of the towns economy. Many jobs were lost. The Elementary School where i attend kindergarten through fifth grade closed. In 2000, the Census Bureau reported the official population of monson was 666 residents. 666 residents. 666. At that point, i think someone needs to take one from the team and just move away from town, or persuade a friend to come move in with them so you have 665 or 667 residents, but not 666. For a long time, as i studied history in graduate school and continued writing history here, i enjoyed visiting monson in the summer, but i did not think much about the history of the place i was from. A few years ago, i began to realize that many of the things i studied as a historian, for world, and the way that places and identities are formed through global interactions, many of those things that i study as a historian played out here in this place that i was from. I began to dream of writing a history of my hometown. That would explore how rural places often forged locality not by isolating themselves from the wider world, but by creatively engaging in it. Long story short, that is the book that i am currently writing. Fortunately for me, the towns always had people who cared a