Missouri History Update

Tags

Bootheel, history, Missouri, tenant farming

Arthur Rothstein, Evicted sharecroppers along Highway 60, New Madrid County, Missouri. Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress), LC-USF33- 002919-M3 [P&P] LOT 1207.

About three and a half years ago, I wrote on this blog about the 1939 tenant farmers’ strike in the Missouri Bootheel, an event that I had not heard about until that moment. It reminded me just how much history is lost or overlooked, especially history that the dominant social group finds unpleasant. Since that time, I’ve learned a bit more.

One thing that I knew then, but didn’t fully grasp, was the extent to which the tenant farmers’ dispossession was the result of Federal policy. The Roosevelt administration was trying to prop up agricultural prices to rescue farmers, who had been going broke by the hundreds of thousands for many years by then. One of the tools they were using in this effort was direct support payments, paying farmers to take land out of production in order to increase prices. But a side-effect of this policy was that once farmers took their land out of production, they no longer needed workers. This doesn’t make the farmers any less culpable or racist in their attitudes, but it does help explain their motivation.

My friend Trevor Harris, who creates the Mo’ Curious podcast sponsored by Missouri Life, got interested in this topic and has been down in the Bootheel making recordings. I’m eager to find out what he obtained, and to hear the podcast that will surely come out of it.

In the meantime, I’ve learned that a documentary film was made in 1999 about the strike, entitled Oh Freedom After While. If your library allows you access to Kanopy, you can view it on that platform. It’s also viewable on Vimeo.

Arthur Rothstein, Evicted sharecropper, New Madrid County, Missouri. Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress), LC-USF33-002921-M1 (b&w film nitrate neg.) LC-DIG-fsa-8a10381 (digital file from original neg.)

Apropos of Nothing…

Tags

Current River, history, Missouri, rivers

Here’s a 1903 photo of the Current River in Carter County, Missouri.

RFD

Tags

mail delivery, post office, RFD, rural life

Ozark Children Getting Mail from RFD Box, 1940. Photographer: John Vachon. Library of Congress FSA Collection

A little while ago, I reviewed a new book entitled Ozarks RFD, by Jim Hamilton. Coincidentally, a friend recently asked me something about the old TV show, Mayberry RFD. Naturally, these events started me thinking about “RFD” itself.

Most of us know that the initials stand for “Rural Free Delivery,” which began in spots in the late 19th century to provide mail service to rural residents. Free delivery had been established in cities over 10,000 in 1863, but it wasn’t until 1895 that Congress appropriated money for some test routes in rural areas. Rural Free Delivery gradually caught on across the country, with the support of farmers’ groups driving the expansion.

Curiously enough, not all rural people supported the idea. Two main groups opposed it: small-town merchants, who rightly recognized that one effect of free mail delivery would be that farmers would make more use of mail-order companies like Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck; and, ironically, postmasters at the smallest post offices. The opposition from small postmasters, typically political appointees, resulted from their recognition that Rural Free Delivery could lead to the elimination of many of their positions, as indeed it did. But farmers loved it, and by 1902 it was established all over the country.

Mailboxes, 1936. Photographer: Russell Lee. Library of Congress FSA Collection.

Like rural electrification a generation later, Rural Free Delivery was a huge leap forward in the betterment of rural life. Farm families could stay in touch with the wider world more easily. They had access to market information and thus were less susceptible to the manipulations of distant capitalists. They could buy more things from faraway places, subscribe to publications more easily, and participate in the national discourse more fully. Free daily postal delivery, which most of us take for granted, was a powerful enrichment to the lives of rural people.

Nowadays, of course, we hear talk about how the Postal Service has become outmoded, superseded by messenger services, private package delivery companies, and the Internet. There is even talk about letting the Postal Service go broke. But for many rural inhabitants, the daily mail is still a lifeline. Rural broadband remains a mirage in many areas, and just try to get FedEx or UPS to deliver to a rural route. It always distresses me to hear politicians talk about how much they love rural people and embrace rural values, and then to watch as they lay siege to the things that make rural life possible.

 

A Mind-Boggling Work of Research

Tags

Crystal Payton, folklore, history, Leland Payton, Lover's Leap

You’ve seen them along the roadside, those statues and markers that purport to represent the spot where an Indian maiden leaped to her death, typically from a high bluff overlooking a river or lake. Whether the cause was pursuit by an enemy tribe, pursuit by members of her own tribe because of a romance with an enemy, or just general lovelorn sadness, the maiden finds life unbearable. So off the cliff she goes, the heroine of a tragic, sentimental tale of love and longing, with the details of the incident lost in the swirl of time.

You’ve seen those markers and statues because, as we now know, hundreds of locations across the country – and the world – have borne the name “Lover’s Leap.” We know this because the photography/writing/collecting team of Leland and Crystal Payton have produced Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, an astonishingly researched book that takes these legends, painstakingly documents their origins, identifies their probable original author, and tracks their variations from the general theme.

How the Paytons managed to track down all these stories, and to collect an amazing variety of postcards, souvenir spoons, posters, sheet music, brochures, souvenir pebbles (yes, I remember those souvenir pebbles, a.k.a “Apache Tears,” from a childhood trip to Arizona), and other memorabilia, is nothing short of amazing. If you’ve seen their other books, such as Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, or James Fork of the White, you know what you’re in for with this book: an exhaustive, copiously illustrated book that weighs in at 352 larger-than-ordinary pages  and traces every anecdote back to its first appearance, then for good measure throws in a reproduction of the 19th-century newspaper article where the story first appeared. This is clearly a labor of love.

The Paytons delve into the cultural implications of these stories, the restrospective positioning of Indian tribes as doomed and suicidal, without falling prey to academic jargon or overinterpretation. Though comprehensive, the book is down to earth, written in a conversational style that presents its research matter-of-factly. The 545 illustrations are sometimes smaller than I would have liked, but that’s the trade-off in getting 545 illustrations onto 352 pages. Unlike their earlier books, which tended to focus on Ozarks stories and locations, this book is nationwide in scope, and even devotes a chapter to international lovers’ leaps. While it is true that suicide by jumping from a high place is a real thing, and sometimes the Paytons do document an actual suicide attempt from a particular bluff or waterfall, the vast majority of these incidents fall into the category they call “fakelore” – bogus legends invented by a local storyteller or tourism promoter, intended to cast an air of mystery over the dramatic location.

Interestingly enough, the Paytons also document in great detail the almost immediate efforts at mockery and debunking. The book is dedicated to Mark Twain, the great anti-sentimentalist, and rarely does a legend emerge without a satiric poem or comedic play to make fun of it. To quote a 1906 filler in The Scranton Republican, “Judging from the number of ‘Lover’s Leaps’ at the various mountain resorts, the favorite amusement of the aboriginal maiden must have been jumping over precipices.”

This is, I believe, the only book-length account of Lover’s Leap legends in the United States and beyond, and it’s a terrific one. Folklorists both amateur and professional will find much to savor in this book. And did I mention that it has an excellent index, the sign of an author who has truly taken care?

You can browse the book at http://hypercommon.com/.

I Should Really Stay Away from the FSA Archives

Tags

art, Arthur Rothstein, Carl Mydans, Farm Services Administration, Great Depression, John Vachon, Ozarks, photography

A recent inquiry, which I will write about later, sent me to the Library of Congress‘ Farm Services Administration digital archive, looking at images. I’ve posted a few before. This is an amazing archive of photographs by some of the greatest photographers in twentieth-century America. It’s truly a bottomless pit for the curious browser. Here are a few that showed up when I searched the archive using “Ozark” as the filter term:

Children of Ozarks Farmer – Missouri, 1940

Ozark Children, 1940

Ozark Farmer and Family, 1940

Ozark Mountain Girls, 1940

William Stamper and Wife, Who Have Lived in the Ozarks for More Than Fifty Years, 1936

Rehabilitation Client at Spinning Wheel, 1935

 

Images of the Past

Tags

detail, history, interpretation, photography, St. Louis

Researching my next book, I came across this trove of photographs in the online magazine Monovisions. 

There’s something about the visual image that arrests in a way that verbal descriptions never do. I lose myself in a narrative or descriptive account, letting my imagination recreate the scene; but with a photograph or map I find myself studying ever more closely, seeking out meaning in the slightest detail.

This photograph was identified as “ca. 1900” and located on Market Street. Let’s assume that the street address on the photo – 1310 – follows the same numbering system in use today. Here’s what’s there now:

A pocket park next to City Hall.

I’m tempted by the story, how the city went from Image A to Image B, but I’m also irresistibly drawn to the image itself. The life in that photograph! The man peering out from the dark interior on the left – is he the proprietor? And what draws his attention? The blurred passerby near him, or the two loafers propped again the liquor window farther down? I can’t make out the posters in that window, but they appear to be promoting a circus that’s coming to town. Below that, California wines are advertised. California wine, in Missouri, at that time? I never imagined.

The enormous billboard on the roof is another infinite attraction. The Forest Park Highlands will be opening for the season soon! There’s a matinee at the Imperial! And who can resist Tomlinson’s Dead Shot and Quick Relief Oil? I’d buy a bottle just for the name.

And these pavers, identified as working on Compton Avenue north of Meramec in 1906, spiffy in their neckties. Why so many paving stones out? I’m guessing it had something to do with getting a good fit of the stones, with pride in one’s craft. Judging by the spires of St. Anthony of Padua in the background, this looks to be the block today:

Those stone paving blocks are still underneath the asphalt, I’ll bet. That would be Gasconade Street crossing, which puts the location way south in St. Louis, down in Dutchtown. A solid and respectable address even then, with gaslamps, limestone foundations, and a big brick neighborhood church. You can see in the background how the paved street will improve the place, as the rutted dirt track leads up the hill to St. Anthony’s.

Finally (for my purposes, anyway: there are more photos in the article), an unidentified street in the early twentieth century. It’s just the beginning of the motorized era; a sleuth more expert in early automobiles could probably identify the year by the look of the light cargo carrier in the right foreground. But carriages still dominate. Ahead of the man in the motorcar is another man in a one-horse gig, following a wagon that appears to be laden with sacks of grain as it labors up the muddy, tracked hill. But most fascinating of all is the heavy wagon coming in from a side street to the left, with an enormous wooden barrel. Delivering? Taking away? Whatever the task, I wouldn’t want to be that horse.

The marvel about old photographs is how the edges, the details, reveal as much or more than the putative subject. The cock of a hat, the item in a window, the passing glance, all speak to us.

An Indispensable Book

Tags

Branson, Crystal Payton, float trips, Galena, James River, Kimberling City, lakes, Leland Payton, rivers, Seymour, Springfield, Table Rock, White River

Readers of books on Ozarks culture and geography are probably familiar with Leland and Crystal Payton, whose earlier works, Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, The Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks, and others, explore elements of the Ozark experience in a reflective and sympathetic though unromanticized way.

Now the Paytons are out with a new book, James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, which treats the James Fork (or James River, depending on your choice of nomenclature) much as Damming the Osage dealt with its river: exploring its culture, its notable inhabitants, its controversies, its geography and hydrology, its history, and ultimately its submersion into a manmade lake, in this case Table Rock Lake, which swallowed up many miles of what had been one of Missouri’s great float streams. The James gets less attention than other Ozarks rivers; it doesn’t have the national recognition of the Buffalo, Current, or Eleven Point, nor the long sinuous might of the Osage. But the stories gathered from along the James, and the variety of its topography as it flows west from near Seymour, skirts the southern edge of Springfield, then abruptly heads south through Galena to its meeting with the lake near Kimberling City, make for a book that should be on the shelf of anyone with an interest in the Ozarks, its streams, or its people.

James Fork of the White is an oversized book, 352 pages with full-color illustrations from start to finish. Many of the illustrations are photographs by Leland Payton, whose work has documented the Ozarks for decades. Payton’s photographic gaze is contemplative, sometimes wry, and often focused on the human artifacts that have marked the landscape over the generations: old bridges, buildings, the remnants of milldams and springhouses, signs, and sometimes (though not insistently) an actual human. The overlook-at-sunset-in-autumn photo is not to be found – or if found, is likely to be a tad off kilter. Just as valuable in the illustrations are the vast numbers of historical images the Paytons have collected, including postcards, maps, clippings, pamphlets, labels, and other ephemera. Taken together, the historic images and the contemporary photographs create a rich visual portrait of the James River watershed.

The text of the book, as with Damming the Osage, consists of brief vignettes about people, incidents, and landscapes within the region, grouped together into chapters that converge on a broader topic: the geography of the region, the upper river, the Springfield section, and the famous float trip stretch from Galena to Branson, for example. Each chapter covers a number of topics within that broad subject area, each typically taking two to four pages before moving on. Like the images, the text covers an immense variety of subjects. There were some I was dimly aware of, some I was familiar with, and many, many that I’d never heard of before. The Paytons, who live in Springfield, have made this river a particular project of documentation, and this book covers everything from forgotten industries and settlements to recent controversies over pollution and development.

I found the saga of the creation of Table Rock Dam and its lake particularly interesting. I suspect I am not alone in assuming that Table Rock originated in the wave of flood control public works projects of the mid-twentieth century, part of the “big dam foolishness” chronicled in Elmer T. Peterson’s book of the same name, but I was surprised to learn that the dam had its roots much farther back. The book details the plans of multiple entrepreneurs to dam the James as early as 1908, plans which were thwarted and resuscitated over the decades as the winds of politics and economics shifted. James Fork of the White treats the creation of Table Rock Lake with evenhanded understanding. The lake has brought immense economic development to Branson and the surrounding area, but that development came at the cost of the permanent inundation of hundreds of miles of valleys, farmland, and settlements. The James Fork’s legendary Galena-to-Branson float, itself a tourist attraction in its own right, was lost to the more mechanized allure of deep flat water, stocked trout, and big bass fishing.

James Fork of the White is a book I will return to again and again, both for the richness of its images and for the variety of its information. For residents of Springfield and the White River valley, and for anyone interested in Ozarks history and culture, this is an indispensable book.

The Humble PawPaw

Tags

Darren Osburn, George Washington, pawpaw, The Language of Trees, trees

My friend Darren Osburn sent me this photo of some unripe pawpaws recently, which got me thinking. I remember eating pawpaws as a youngster; I liked the taste, which vaguely resembled that of a banana, but the seeds had to be worked around. A crude but reasonably effective way of telling when they’re ripe is to watch for raccoon scat—once you start to see pawpaw seeds in it, you know the pawpaws are ready. As with persimmons, eating an unripe one is a mistake made only once.

My mom used to sing “Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch,” which some of you may remember. It’s a children’s tune about poor little Susie (or Nellie in other versions), who is way down yonder, etc., picking up pawpaws and putting them in her pocket, accompanied by hand gestures to match. Poor little Nellie had the good sense to pick the pawpaws off the ground, which meant that they were ripe, rather than off the tree.

My reading tells me that the pawpaw is the largest indigenous native fruit in North America and that chilled pawpaws were one of George Washington’s favorite desserts. There is also a dinosaur called the Pawpawsaurus, so named not because it dined on pawpaws (although it was a herbivore), but because its fossils were found in a rock formation in Texas known as the Paw Paw Formation. Still, I like the idea of pawpawsauruses roaming the earth in bygone times.

 

Favorite Ozarks Images – 14

Tags

Anemone, Missouri, Ozarks, photography, St. Francis River, Wildflowers

Rue anemone on granite

In honor of the approach of spring, here’s a photo I took some years ago at the Silvermines Shut-Ins. I was taken by the patterns of the water over the granite and the contrast with the anemone blossom that had drifted in from somewhere.

Seriously, You Should Check Out This Website

Tags

Crystal Payton, Hypercommon, Leland Payton

If you’re interested in Ozarks culture and heritage, and aren’t afraid of some thoughtful analysis to go along with that interest, you should bookmark Hypercommon.com, a multi-media website recently set up by Leland and Crystal Payton. The Paytons are long-time collectors of Ozarks memorabilia, writers and photographers on contemporary and historical Ozarks subjects, and deep analysts of the economic and political decisions that have shaped much of the Ozark landscape. This website engages all their interests, and every post is interesting. Ozarks geeks, check it out. Hypercommon.com.