Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940

Foreword: Dreams of Plenty

Foreword: Dreams of Plenty William Cronon regon has long been one of the most resonant national icons of the United States. Known as a land of journey's ending since at least 1805, when Lewis and Clark first set eyes on the Pacific Ocean after their long march across the continent, the Oregon country seemed a kind of lush oasis on the far side ofthe Rocky Mountains for nineteenth-century Americans thinking of pulling up stakes and heading west. Lewis and Clark and subsequent explorers brought back the news that the lands west of the Missouri River were anything but well-watered, and might prove dangerous indeed for anyone trying to set up a farm and make a living there. The report of Stephen Long's 1820 expedition went so far as to describe the Plains as "The Great American Desert" - hardly an inviting prospect. But beyond this arid country was Oregon, a moist green Eden perfectly suited to the Jeffersonian vision ofyeoman farm families tilling the soil and fulfilling the democratic promise of the young American nation. And so the first great overland migrations were not to California and the Gold Rush but farther north, to the country at the mouth of the Columbia River and along the fertile banks of the Willamette. The story ofthose journeys is that of the Oregon Trail, a name that still looms as large in the mythic and historical consciousness of the American people as any in our history. As such, Oregon is central to some ofthe deepest and most fiercely held narratives of American frontier history: families leaving their homes and loading their most precious belongings into covered wagons, struggling with gritty determination in the face of terrible hardships, finally to arrive at the promised land at the end of the trail. In its xi xii Foreword most familiar forms, this is a storyofordinary folk rising to meet great challenges , of fertile lands rewarding their inhabitants with bounteous plenty, of communities improving themselves and thereby fulfilling the dream of American progress. The stories Americans have wanted to tell about Oregon are the stories they have most wanted to believe about themselves, and about America itself. That is why William Robbins' compelling new book, Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Country, 1800-1940, is such an important contribution not just to the history ofthe Pacific Northwest but to American history generally . This volume offers one of the most ambitious and creative syntheses of Oregon history we have seen in a generation, and manages to find much that is unexpected in material that might otherwise seem all too familiar. Robbins recognizes right from the outset that mythic stories about Oregon's past are in fact a crucial part of its history, for what people believe most deeply about a place can powerfully affect the way they relate to and use its environment. He acknowledges how central the dream of progress and agrarian community has been to Oregonians and to Americans generally but then proceeds to demonstrate the complex tensions between that dream and the historical realities of the region. By combining a sensitive understanding ofregional ecology with a critical analysis of economic change, he offers a much fuller understanding of how the Oregon country developed between the arrival of Lewis and Clark and the advent of World War II. As such, Landscapes ofPromise is a benchmark achievement in William Robbins' already impressive scholarly career. One of the nation's leading western historians and a pioneer in developing the new field of environmental history, Robbins has authored a series of books on different aspects of the ways Americans have used and manipulated the ecosystems around them. His Lumberjacks and Legislators: Political Economy ofthe u.s. Lumber Industry, 1890-1941 (1982) is a significant and highly critical study of interactions between lumber corporations and American politicians. American Forestry (1985) examines the interactions between national forest policyand the United States Forest Service on the one hand and state and local forest managers on the other. Hard Times in Paradise (1988) is a richly textured and evocative local history of Coos Bay, Oregon, as members of its community sought to weather the booms and busts of lumbering in the local Foreword XIII economy. And his Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the American West (1994) offered a bold synthesis of the entire West as a case study in economic colonialism, social struggle, and environmental degradation . Along the way, Robbins also served as editor of Environmental Review (now renamed...