Life and Loss in Two American Towns

Far From Home

by Ron Powers

Lisa Weishaar

23 Sep 03

Purpose

Provide class with a brief overview “…of America at its best and its worst; and of the choices we still have to make about the quality and conditions of our lives, choices we must make before they are made for us.”

Agenda

About the Author Rural/Urban Transformation Cairo, Illinois Kent, Connecticut Conclusion Questions

About the Author (1 of 2)

Ron Powers:– A former on-air columnist for CBS Sunday

Morning– Won Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1973– Lives in Middlebury, Vermont

About the Author (2 of 2)

“Ron Powers is a wise and brilliant commentator on American life. In Far from Home, his cautionary tale of two towns, he cuts to the quick of this nation in mesmerizing narrative that will become a classic of its kind.”

---Jay Parini

Rural-Urban Transformation(1 of 9)

American innocence = the Town Man, farm, town, city Americans love their towns

Rural-Urban Transformation(2 of 9)

“The urban trend, whether we like it or not, is undeniable” (Robert Moses, 1956)

Industry, technology, & world war diminished the importance of the American town

Rural-Urban Transformation(3 of 9)

In 1932, it was reported that the automobile “had erased the boundaries which formally separated urban from rural territory…”

The paved highway initiated the classic American progression from farm to town to city

Rural-Urban Transformation(4 of 9)

“Many an American small town or village is no longer a community. Too often it is only a small city, the citizens largely going their individual ways. This progressive disappearance of the community in present-day life is one of the most disturbing phenomena of modern history. It constitutes an historical crisis.”

--Arthur Morgan, Sociologist, 1942

Rural-Urban Transformation(5 of 9)

“There are two rural Americas, one is real and one is imagined.”

--Darryl Hobbs, Prof of Rural Sociology

The imagined rural America is the stuff of national myth

The real one, is less pleasing

Rural-Urban Transformation(6 of 9)

Rural environments appear to be in danger of inevitable extinction

Statistics:– 1880’s:

• Ag/Manufacturing-86%• Urban/Info-Age-2%

– 2000 (projected): • Ag/Manufacturing-24%• Urban/Info-Age-66%

Rural-Urban Transformation(7 of 9)

Transformations accelerated in the 1980’s

Drop in farm prices shut down town after town across the Midwest

Lost 3% of population 1980-1986

Rural-Urban Transformation(8 of 9)

Kansas was on the brink– 600 small towns, 532 had fewer than 2500– After Civil War symbol of prosperity

Changed in the 80’s– Grain/oil prices/land values diminished– Young people left towns and farms for jobs

in Wichita– Remaining population, 15% over age of 65

Rural-Urban Transformation(9 of 9)

Kansas State University proposed a radical strategy of rescue called “triage”– Promote the use of public funds for towns

between 2500-5000– Towns under 2500 would survive the best

they could or die “Atrophy & Hyperprosperity”

– Those who loved their towns, were the agents of their doom

Cairo, Illinois (1 of 2)

General Background– Once a riverboat port– Race riots in the 60’s– Industry fled and town became destitute– Richard “Doc” Poston, an expert in

community development is hired Operation Enterprise Quinstate Forum

Cairo, Illinois (2 of 2)

Historical Significance– The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Grant’s army barracks at Ft Defiance

Kent, Connecticut(1 of 3)

General Background– Condominium developers & exurban

weekenders – Outside money found the town– Total disregard for its pastoral beauty and

small-town traditions Henry Kissinger and the destruction of

the blueberry bushes

Kent, Connecticut (2 of 3)

Town vs the “outsiders” 1950s when wave of 1st “summer

people” came to Kent As years went on, more and more

newcomers trickled into Kent Gradual conversion from “weekenders”

to permanent residents Planning and Zoning began in 1960s

Kent, Connecticut (3 of 3)

Real Estate dominated the town’s political life, defined it’s social classes

Kent School– Prep boarding institution– Selling several buildings, acreage:

$12,000,000• Propose 350 dwelling units

Kent Grange

Conclusion

Doc Poston still searching for the savior of Cairo—not gambling, but commercial attraction based on heritage

Recession in New England states

“As the towns and farm communities languished, American cities, where most of the rural population drifted, seemed locked

into an irreversible, murderous slide towards chaos and barbarism.”

Questions??