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Fall 2013 MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS THE CULTURE AND SCIENCE OF RAINMAKING IN THE SOUTHERN GREAT PLAINS, 1870-1913 Michael R. Whitaker University of Calgary

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Whitaker, Michael R., "MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS THE CULTURE AND SCIENCE OF RAINMAKING IN THE SOUTHERN GREAT PLAINS, 1870-1913" (2013). Great Plains Quarterly. 2552. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2552

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS THE CULTURE AND SCIENCE OF RAINMAKING IN THE SOUTHERN GREAT PLAINS, 1870-1913

MICHAEL R. WHITAKER

funds, while others were equally certain of the For two weeks in August 1891, the grounds of reality of the connection and regarded the poten­ the "C" Ranch in rural West Texas thundered tial windfall great enough to justifY any expense. with the sound of explosions, as a federal govern­ Scientists in particular were almost unanimously ment-sponsored expeditionary force hurled hun­ doubtful (and occasionally hostile), and made dreds of pounds of heavy ordnance against an their views clear in the scholarly organs of their invisible enemy. In command of this unusual op­ profession. In the end, the experiments failed to eration was "General" Robert Dyrenforth, who prove a definitive connection; indeed, as many with $9,000 of congressional funding in pocket had predicted all along, sober assessments of the was doing his utmost to find out whether, as a bit data yielded litrle to suggest any causal link be­ of folk wisdom ran, the furious tumult and aerial tween explosions and rainfall. Yet, curiously, this concussions of battle could somehow cause rain. was by no means the end of the theory. Over the From tiny western hamlets to the metropolises of course of two decades, a colorful cast of charac­ the East, Americans were fascinated by the sen­ ters, from an eccentric self-titled "general" to a sational experiments. In magazines, newspapers, millionaire cereal magnate-cum-social engineer, and journals, some scoffed at what they saw as typified a stubborn core of devoted believers. a fool's errand and an egregious waste of public Each attempted to prove (or make practical use of) the theory by discharging various weapons and explosives at the sky, hoping that raindrops Key Words: Robert Dyrenforth, pathological science, pluviculture, would come down in exchange. popular science, C. W Post, weather modification, Western expansion How is it that in spite of the vehement opposi­

Michael R. Whitaker earned an MA in history from the University tion of scientific experts and the ambiguous re­ of Calgary and a BA with honors from the University of British sults of field tests, the theory maintained such a Columbia. His main research interests include environmental history durable and loyal following, and even won federal and the American frontier in the late nineteenth and early twentieth funding? This essay will attempt to demonstrate century. He currently lives in Vancouver, Canada, where he works as that the appeal and resiliency of the concussive an independent researcher, writer, and historian.

[GPQ 33 {Fall 2013):207-2191 207 208 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2013 theory of "pluviculture" stems from the fact that would have experienced a drenching rain at some its foundation was cultural-rooted in social-po­ point after the battle's conclusion. So strong was litical attitudes about the environment and prog­ the apparent connection that it became a matter ress-as much or more than it was scientific. In of general understanding that the concussion of other words, within the United States, the theory battle would reliably bring precipitation.3 Hence, established a devoted following and was able to when Edward Powers published a chronicle of ~thstand unanimous scientific critique and even Civil War battles followed by rain in his 1871 War practical failures because it originated in power­ and the Weather, he was not advancing a novel ful and deeply held ideas in the American psyche theory but rather putting into print a conclusion of the Progressive era.! that thousands of Union and Confederate sol­ Foremost among these ideas was the notion of diers from private to general had already formed North America as a landscape that ought to be in their own minds. In this way, the concussionist conquered and tamed by Americans as a kind of theory appealed to a shared experience lodged in grand national endeavor-a sentiment neatly en­ the minds of an enormous cohort of former fight­ capsulated and expressed by the phrase "manifest ing men.4 This strong reliance on experience also destiny." In terms of the environment, this played served to immunize the theory against criticisms out in a large-scale pattern of clearing away the based on theories of meteorology and physics. wilderness and putting plow to earth wherever Even before independence, many Americans settlers wished to grow crops, with little regard had regarded westward expansion as an expres­ to the local climate and terrain.2 And where Na­ sion of national progress and personal liberation, tive groups were seen as an obstacle to progress, a sentiment that grew stronger with the advent colonists and soldiers often waged war against of the industrial revolution and its concomitant them. The concussion theory, then, offered the urbanization in the early nineteenth century. psychologically satisfying thought that the struggle The Great Plains had beckoned would-be settlers to tame the environment and the struggle against from the east to escape the ceaseless toil of the big the Native peoples were in fact one in the same, city and come west to try their hand at agricul­ and accordingly might be "won" with literally the ture, filling their lungs with the refreshing air of very same "weapons" and strategies-the detona­ the independent life and revitalizing the national tion of high explosives. For this reason, as we shall spirit. But where railroads and land barons had see, the language and aesthetics of militarism and promised endless tracts of fecund soil and effort­ conquest permeated the discourse and conduct of less harvests, geography often failed to match ex­ concussionist experiments. Furthermore, inflex­ pectations, and in few places was this truer than ible determination was elevated as the attribute the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains, a sprawling, both necessary and sufficient for success. bone-dry expanse of beige that could go months The lived experience of the Civil War was an­ or even years at a time with little to no precipita­ other factor that contributed to the resiliency of tion. It was in this desperate situation that Ameri­ the concussionist position. The Civil War was a cans began dreaming up other ways to bring pre­ conflict of unprecedented carnage and destruc­ cious moisture to the land. Some posited that tion, of countrymen taking up arms against one the farmer who took a leap of faith in cultivating another and national unity shattered, and of marginal land would be rewarded with increased profound moral questions over the institution rainfall. As early as 1867, University of Pennsyl­ of slavery and the status of African Americans vania geologist Ferdinand Hayden was suggesting in American society. Alongside these weighty is­ that the mere act of settlement was improving sues, however, veterans reflecting on their war the climate of the West, a sentiment that C. D. experience also very often remembered the pre­ Wilbur later summed up in the famous mantra cipitation. A rifleman who fought at Antietam, "rain follows the plow."5 A similar idea, that the Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Shiloh, Chicka­ electrical current carried in railroad tracks or tele­ mauga, or Gettysburg, to name only a few cases, graph wires had increased precipitation in the MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS 209

West, was sufficiently believed that John Wesley Bernhard Fernow, chief of the Forestry Division, Powell felt it necessary to include a disproof in was adamant that his division lacked the appara­ his 1878 Report on the Lands of the Arid Region.6 In tus and authority to carry out such an undertak­ view of these facts, the concussion theory emerg­ ing, and moreover, was embarrassed to be con­ es as a natural next step in a progression of ideas nected to what he considered rank foolishness. In in which tokens of civilization and progress were his annual report to Rusk, for example, Fernow imagined to have some power to affect the envi­ declared that any experiments "would hardly fail ronment. Concussionism, however, reduced the to be barren of results."8 tokenism in favor of heavy firepower, preferring Having made his objections clear, Fernow was realist to symbolic thinking. relieved of his responsibilities, and the operation was redelegated to assistant secretary of agricul­ ture Edwin Willits. Though more sympathetic to SETTING THE STAGE the possibility of rainmaking by concussion, Wil­ The single most influential text in the story of the lits was in agreement with Fernow that neither concussionism was Edward Powers's War and the the Forestry Division nor its parent department Weather. The book compiled a list of hundreds of were equipped to perform the experiments. For battles that had been followed by rain, and the this reason, Willits in February 1891 appointed aforementioned wetness of the Civil War pro­ an ad hoc special agent in the person of "Gen­ vided plenty of grist for Powers's mill. War and eral" Robert G. Dyrenforth-a Washington, DC, the Weather first appeared in print in 1871, with a patent lawyer with an amateur interest in me­ second edition appearing in 1890. In the interim teorology and explosives, and not incidentally, a between the publications, Powers and others of a convinced concussionist-to execute the experi­ similar mentality had persistently memorialized ments.9 Dyrenforth spent the next five months Congress, the army, the navy, and several other assembling a team of assistants, acquiring materi­ governmental offices to contribute funding and als, and selecting a test site, eventually accepting weaponry to test the idea, and scored a crucial the offer of Chicago meat packer Nelson Morris, convert in the person of Illinois senator Charles who promised to extend the party complimen­ B. Farwell. Farwell made the cause a pet project, tary room and board at his "c" Ranch outside introducing several requests for funding in the Midland, Texas, while underwriting labor costs Senate, and finally gained traction with his col­ and other miscellaneous expenses. Local business leagues in 1890, the same year War and the Weath­ concerns were similarly generous, donating gun­ er reappeared for a new generation of readers. By powder, dynamos, chemicals, and other useful that time, the rainy battles of the Civil War would goods to the effort, while the Texas and Pacific not have been so fresh in the public memory as Railroad extended further assistance in the form they had been in 1871, but another factor had by of free transportation of personnel and material then emerged to renew the relevance and popu­ to Midland.lO larity of the theory: accelerating settlement of the In August 1891, the arrangements now sorted Great Plains coupled with severe and recurring out, Dyrenforth and his entourage made their droughts in the late 1880s. At Farwell's behest, way by rail to the test site. Dyrenforth had decid­ Congress authorized $9,000 to be set aside for ed that oversize kites carrying "rackarock" charges testing the strange hypothesis. As nothing of this and hydrogen-oxygen balloons would offer a su­ sort had ever been attempted before, there was perior concussion and be easier to elevate to the some uncertainty as to which branch of the gov­ desired altitude. Therefore he brought with him ernment ought to handle it, but it was eventually a balloonist and two chemists who would oversee decided that the most appropriate agency was the the field production of the hydrogen and oxygen Division of Forestry, then within Jeremiah Rusk's gas that would provide both the balloons' buoyant Department of Agriculture. 7 This decision would force and explosive matter. Also in the party were put something of a wrinkle in the proceedings; two guests of honor: ex-Confederate general Dan- 2lO GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2013

FIo. 1. Dyrenforth and party at the "c" Ranch, Texas, 1891. Dyrenforth is fifth from the left (seated in chair, hands resting on thighs). iel Ruggles, who in 1880 had patented a method a formation that must have resembled a battery of of artificial rainmaking involving balloons with artillery pieces. On the front line was a row of jury­ attached dynamite charges, and Edward Powers, rigged mortars that were set up as to hurl dyna­ whose book had been so instrumental in trans­ mite and rackarock charges skyward. Supporting forming a folk theory into an object of serious the front line was a line of custom-built kites with scientific inquiry. Rounding out the investigative dynamite charges attached, tethered to the earth team was George E. Curtis of the Smithsonian by electrical cable that also served to transmit the Institution, a meteorologist who, like division detonation signal. Finally, in the rearguard of the chief Fernow, was sharply skeptical of the prin­ battalion was the "main line" at which twelve­ ciple at the foundation of the endeavor.1I foot balloons filled with oxygen and hydrogen gas would ascend hundreds of feet in the air to be exploded, like the kites, by electrical signals from EXPERIMENTING BEGINS the groundY But even in the superficial and the Beginning on August 9, Dyrenforth and his party intangible details, Dyrenforth adopted a military began unleashing their fearsome barrages against model, sporting a pith helmet and cavalry boots the atmosphere (initially at the "C" Ranch and throughout the investigation. The official party subsequently at El Paso and San Diego, Texas, at portrait shows the men relaxing on a porch, eight the invitation of local businesses and municipal of them topped with helmets to match Dyren­ leaders), inflating and exploding several dozen forth's, and three visibly gripping shotgunsY oxyhydrogen balloons and detonating thousands of pounds of explosives over the course of several PUBLIC RESPONSE weeks. Dyrenforth took pains to ensure that the desert trial simulated a battle in both appearance The enormous public appetite for news on the and spirit. In terms of arrangement, the "general" pluviculture experiments is attested by the enthu­ arranged three parallel two-mile-long firing lines in siasm with which hopeful Americans from the re- MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS 21l

motest corners of the nation cried out for haste. CONCUSSIONISM AS MILITARY PROXY Henry Holdes, a self-described "poor farmer" from the remote frontier hamlet of Yuma, Colo­ Clearly, Dyrenforth's desert venture was more rado, wrote to Secretary Rusk, earnestly offering than some parochial sideshow. On the contrary, use of his land for any experiments at no charge, it resonated with cultural attitudes about the and thoughtfully including a hand-drawn map environment, and gives us a window on some of his community and a table of meteorological prominent modes of thinking about nature and observations.14 In Wichita, where the droughts of settlement. In more ways than one, the din of the the late 1880s had taken a heavy toll, the Daily battlefield was very much in the minds of those Eagle pleaded with the secretary of agriculture: who undertook, reported on, and thought about "There could hardly be a more opportune occa­ the experiments. Dyrenforth himself was clear sion for making the experiment.... Try it, Uncle that his driving methodology in the desert had Jerry; try it now."15 always been "to imitate the effects of a great battle The speed with which news from Midland as nearly as possible."20 In describing the proceed­ appeared in newspapers nationwide further illus­ ings, writers made frequent use of military imag­ trates the level of national interest. On August ery and terminology in their descriptions of ele­ 10, a Monday, some twelve hours after the experi­ ments of the experiment as well as of the entire ment's opening salvo, rain began to fall and an enterprise, even when the connection was not necessarily an obvious one. "Sounding like the enthusiastic party member wired Senator Farwell report of a six-inch rifle on shipboard" was the to share the good news; by Thursday, papers simile offered by a New York Times reporter, de­ from coast to coast were ready to anoint the ex­ scribing a trial explosion of one of Dyrenforth's perimenters as the saviors of national agriculture. balloons in Washington, DC. 21 A concerned citi­ The Rocky Mountain News of Denver declared zen wrote the editor of the Times proposing that "They Made Rain," while the Chicago Times pro­ something similar to the undertaking in Texas be claimed that the visionary Farwell had "outdone essayed in the East to relieve the ongoing drought Moses."16 As the experiments continued, the there. "Let the forts on Governors Island, Fort flood of positive press continued. The front page Hamilton, and Staten Island, and the war vessels of the Washington Post announced "Bombs Cause stationed at the navy yard commence a bombard­ Rain to FaIL"17 "Rain Made to Order" one New ment, and shake the heavens until the clouds York Times front-page headline declared, inform­ yield rain.... Let the Department of War issue ing readers that "it began to rain immediately" af­ an order for a general bombardment," he wrote, ter Dyrenforth exploded a balloon and a healthy making abundantly clear his preference for heavy dose of dynamite. Two days later, readers learned ordnance to less bellicose methods such as explo­ that Van Horn, Texas, had experienced its heavi­ sive hydrogen balloons or rackarock-Iaden kites.22 est rain in years, the cloudburst attributed to the In yet another article, the writer noted that "the party's weather meddling.1s Not mentioned was experimenters have maintained a continuous the fact that Van Horn is some 180 miles from 'skirmish' at the field of operation, while the big­ Midland. Such was typical of the Dyrenforth­ ger 'guns' in the shape of oxygen apparatus and friendly press: determined to report successful hydrogen generators were being set Up."23 Even in results, and not about to let facts stand in the way the context of the experiment, the gas generators, of a good story. Readers scarcely heard that Au­ which merely supplied the hydrogen and oxygen gust generally signaled the beginning of the rainy for the balloons, had little in common with artil­ season in the Texas plains, or that fewer than half lery pieces in either purpose or appearance. That the barrages had resulted in rain of any appre­ the writer at any rate thought of them as guns ciable volume {and in at least one of those cases, illustrates the extent to which a strong undercur­ the Weather Bureau had already predicted rain rent of military power informed understandings anyway).19 of what was taking place on the plains of Texas. 212 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2013

In addition, besides the literary allusions, there citizen opined that the results, not the mecha­ were more literal factors that contributed to the nism, should be the main object of interest, de­ view of the experiments as a military operation. claring "after the thing is done we shall all be in The U.S. Navy supplied the party with iron turn­ a receptive mood for the explanation of how it ings. Although the turnings were simply scrap is done."27 In a letter quoted in Scientific Ameri­ metal to be used in the chemical production of can, Senator Farwell explained that his belief in hydrogen and oxygen, it is easy to imagine that the rainmaking power of concussion came not someone not familiar with the term might have in connection with any understanding of atmo­ assumed that the navy was supplying Dyrenforth spheric moisture but rather from the "historical and his party with munitions. When the investi­ and undisputed" understanding that "that after gators relocated from Midland to EI Paso, they all the great battles fought during the century, met with the Major James Henton and Lieuten­ heavy rainfalls have occurred. "28 The New York ant S. Allen Dyer of nearby Fort Bliss, who put Times, in explaining the influx of rain that had twenty privates from the Twenty-third Infantry accompanied the desert trials, observed that "[tl at the disposal of the experimenters, which can he Scientific Person has not been heard from," only have reinforced the public image of the en­ but that "Gen. Dyrenforth is not a man with a terprise as a military undertaking. [proof], but a man of ideas."29 If the experiments were indeed symbolic prox­ Perhaps unsurprisingly, the "general" in com­ ies for real battle, who was the enemy? The Wash­ mand of the experiments was of a similar men­ ington Post typified the answer to this question, tality. In October 1891, after the investigators' characterizing the high winds that were playing explosives had fallen silent, Dyrenforth took up havoc with the balloon and kite operations as the affirmative position in a marquee column a "powerful and relentless enemy," adding that for the North American Review entitled "Can We Dyrenforth and company had nevertheless scored Make It Rain?"30 Besides the customary chronicle "a fitting victory ... in their efforts to shake wa­ of rain-soaked battles from recent history, Dyren­ ter from the burning winds."24 Other newspapers forth included a battery of testimonial letters identified the adversary as the clouds, the sky, from particularly esteemed Civil War veterans or the atmosphere, but the underlying idea was to buttress his position. Among these luminar­ usually the same: that the environment, unwill­ ies were Joshua Chamberlain, then-governor of ing to cooperate with the settlers' designs upon Maine who had been decorated with the Medal it by selfishly withholding its vital moisture, was of Honor as a brevet major general in the Civil the enemy.25 War; John McNulta, Illinois representative and Civil War general; and no less than James A. Garfield, former president and major general "CAN WE MAKE IT RAIN!" in the Union Army.3! And in his report to Con­ Another important element that emerges in lit­ gress, Dyrenforth appended his write-up with six erature sympathetic to Dyrenforth's experiments full pages of testimonials from local eyewitnesses is a characteristic prioritizing of experience over who had wandered by to observe the proceed­ meteorological theory and, furthermore, a feeling ings. When it came to meteorological theory, that inflexible willpower, rather than scientific however, Dyrenforth had not much to say: in that method, was the key to success. After all, War and same document, he admitted that although he the Weather was not much more than a compen­ had received a number of suggested theories as dium of battle narratives appended with a dash of to the mechanism of concussive pluviculture, he tentative meteorological theory.26 A letter to the was unable to understand many of themY But New York Times considered the concussive theory this was a small matter; crafting a rigorous theo­ "proven" based solely on "the testimony of many retical basis for concussionism had always been of general officers engaged in the Mexican war and secondary importance. Rather, a social logic that in the late civil war," while another concerned prioritized empirical observation and bare-bones MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS 213 pragmatism informed and supported the reason­ Texas increased, and the mediocrity of the results ing of the concussionists. became more apparent. Skeptical newspapers, In fact, Dyrenforth-friendly literature seems to which probably outnumbered the faithful from have been aware of the incompatibility of their the end of August onward as the smoke cleared, criteria of proof-based on experience, common characterized the experiments as "absurd, not sense, and intuition-with those of the scien­ to say shameless, misrepresentation," "an utter tific establishment and its functionaries, as the and ridiculous failure," and other choice phras­ clashing paradigms engendered a simmering but es.38 The New York Times-which in August had perceptible mutual enmity. When peering across published its fair share of booster columns for this gulf, pluviculture boosters painted their op­ Dyrenforth and company-by November was now ponents as elitist snobs and bureaucratic job­ playing the experiments for laughs. As the city sworths, and took a particular relish in narrating water reservoirs ran dangerously low, it mused their failures. 33 One writer, praising Dyrenforth's that the National Guard might lend a hand by proactive use of the congressional appropriation engaging in some artillery practice-but only as mused that the $9,000 might otherwise have a "jocular suggestion."39 George Curtis, the me­ been "squandered" had it instead been invested teorologist assigned to the expedition, penned a in the Weather Bureau "which, as everybody blistering tirade for the St. Louis Republic, calling knows, is supplied ad nauseum with every sort the experiment a "miserable farce" and its com­ of weather except the desired or expected sort." manding general "an inexcusable bungler ... his Referencing the forestry chiefs antipathy for the botchwork a burlesque on science and common Dyrenforth expedition, the same author scoffed, sense."40 Not fully drained of his frustration, "Mr. Fernow, we regret to say, thought that Gen. Curtis went on the attack again in the following Dyrenforth could not make it rain, and proved year, writing that to promulgate the concussionist that he could not by illustrious names which we hypothesis was "to reject the light of civilization will not mortify by citing here any further than and to retrograde to a cruder and less rational ap­ may be necessary."H A New York Times columnist prehension of natural phenomena."41 looked forward to the inevitable "mystification Though Curtis's critiques may have been par­ of the nearest local weather sharp . . . and the ticularly searing, his sentiment was not atypical forcible overthrow of all the accumulated lore of his profession. Publications associated with and stock signs of the Signal Bureau and its ob­ related sciences such as Nature, Science, American servers."35 The "general" himself apparently felt Meteorological Journal, and Engineering Magazine, a similar disdain for bureaucratic naysayers. The to name a few, printed essays often laced with ranch-hand cowboys, he claimed in an interview, scornful undertones of varying degrees of sub­ were far more knowledgeable in weather matters tlety, confidently asserting the impossibility of than office-bound meteorologistS, whom he de­ concussive pluviculture and tearing apart Dyren­ risively called "those special advisory agents of forth's methodology.42 The Meteorologist declared Providence on weather matters. "36 the theory "low and degrading. "43 Physics profes­ As tantalizing as the prospect of rain on de­ sor Alexander Macfarlane, who like Curtis was mand may have been (or perhaps because it an eyewitness to the goings-on, hammered out seemed too good to be true), the concussion­ a fulminating critique for the inaugural issue of ists' doubters were many, and made their views the Transactions of the Texas Academy of Science, known as loudly as the supporters. Forestry Divi­ peppered with phrases and terms such as "no sion chief Fernow, thankful to have had the ex­ better than the medicine man of the Indians," periment taken off his hands, was nevertheless "useless," "impostor," "ignorance," and "so-called aghast at the choice of Dyrenforth as the principal facts and cranky arguments. "44 The acidity of the investigator. "I strongly advise everybody to have scientists' counterattack against the concussion­ his ark ready for the deluge," he quipped.37 The ists underscores the epistemological and meth­ volume of reliable information trickling out of odological differences between the two groups. 214 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2013

When Curtis, Macfarlane, and others like them wished to rebut the concussionists, there was no shared foundation of knowledge on which they could construct the kinds of collegial arguments they would have made against a fellow scientist in the pages of Scientific American.

DYRENFORTH'S SUCCESSORS Public esteem for Dyrenforth reached its zenith in the Texas plains in August 1891 but did not maintain its lofty position for long. The Depart­ ment of Agriculture declined to renew his ap­ pointment as special agent after his term expired the following summer. As concussionism's crit­ ics grew more numerous and vocal, the diehard believers, including Edward Powers, the father of the theory, wasted no time in making a scape­ goat of the "general," blaming the failure of the experiments on Dyrenforth's shoddy execution. The man once dubbed "General Jupiter Pluvius" now had a new nickname: "Dry-henceforth."45 Yet even as the champion sank into disrepute and FIG. 2. Charles William Post. obscurity, the cause persisted, with the hallmarks of incorporated militarism and social logic. As the government tests came to an end in Texas, a about one hundred miles northeast of Midland, coalition of local politicians and business leaders Post and his colonists had thus far eked out mea­ came together to pledge to carry on the experi- ' ger harvests by experimenting with expensive ments on their own funding.46 In 1894, during an irrigation systems, cultivating unconventional, especially dry summer, a group of Nebraska citi­ drought-resistant crops, and employing dryland zens formed the "Rain God Association," a kind farming techniques. Post, however, saw the po­ of rainmaking militia that raised $1,000 to give tential for much more in the land, and after "an the concussion theory a trial of their own. The exhaustive study" of rainmaking was convinced "Rain Gods" built a ZOO-mile line of gunpowder that Dyrenforth had been on the right track firing stations on hilltops along the forty-second all along and the concussion theory had merit. parallel, and detonated them simultaneously, to "General J.G. [sic) Dyrenforth, a well-knowil sci­ no appreciable effectY In the first decade of the entist and meteorologist . .. left no doubt . . . that twentieth century, it was not uncommon in times the rains were caused by the explosions," Post of forest fire for locals to petition their local army proclaimed in a special piece for Harper's Weekly. or naval base for a barrage to try to bring some "[Tlhe world, generally, seems to have forgotten rain clouds.48 The most serious post-Dyrenforth that rain could be produced artificially."50 inquiry into concussive pluviculture, however, Between 1910 and 1912, Post conducted doz­ came about twenty years after the "general" and ens of experiments, or "battles" as he preferred his party had finally decamped from Texas, but it to call them, at times also employing the terms unfolded in the very same locale as the 1891 trials. "attack upon the elements" and "fight with Jupi­ In 1910, breakfast cereal king Charles w. Post's ter"-and in so doing repeated all the characteris­ experimental colony at Post City, Texas, had been tic elements of the previous generation's concus­ up and running for about four years.49 Located sionists. 5l For example, in conducting his trials, MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS 215

Post directed his managers to try to emulate a contrast, was of less consequence: "I am not so battle, and by one account succeeded spectacu­ much interested in the scientific as the practical larly. In 1911 a reporter for the Beckham County side," Post wrote. "I am more engrossed in the Democrat happened to pass by Post City during a results than the method."55 Indeed, Post made "battle" and recorded his impressions: clear his distrust of certain naysaying scientists, [A]long the verge of cliffs we could see the declaring with certainty (as many optimistic con­ flash, the clouds of smoke rising and with cussionists had done before him) that "the theory our ears pierced by the deafening reports we of artificial rain making is not the mere chimera were with Roosevelt at San Juan Hill and that some scientifically inclined men would have were storming the block house.... [Als the us believe."56 increased thundering of the guns seemed to rend the very air over and around us, we THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN RAINMAKING thought we were with General Hooker at the Battle Above the Clouds.sz In 1894, Mark W. Harrington, chief of the Weather Bureau, completed an essay for the Like his pluvicultural predecessors, Post's re­ Smithsonian Institution's annual report. Titled sults were at best inconsistent. From the spring "Weather Making, Ancient and Modern," he of 1911 to the summer of 1913, he waged about identified three classes of weather-making ef­ twenty-one "battles," but only half the time did forts from human history, which corresponded rain follow. Yet his patience for failure was virtu­ to a civilization's stage of advancement. The first ally unlimited: after each unsuccessful effort, he and most primitive of these was the class of su­ would simply fine tune some variable or other perstitious efforts, which originated in formal and perhaps increase the tonnage of explosives or organized religious belief. Following this was (and on one occasion blame his supplier for the class of folklore remnants, which were said faulty dynamite), as if the outcome of the experi­ to be fragments and vestiges of the first type, yet ment had been a tantalizing near miss. The key to this conviction can be found in a letter he wrote maintained "a curious persistency in civilized to his managers, castigating them for a perceived countries." Finally, the class of physical meth­ lack of interest in the project: "I want extraordi­ ods, which Harrington proclaimed was "mainly nary attention given to this subject," he insisted, American and intensely practical," appealed to "for it means a very great deal to the country at objective physical laws rather than psychic im­ large, and all of us are included."53 For Post, then, pulses as the first two did. 57 Harrington sorted the "battles" for rain were no less than battles for Dyrenforth's escapade into the third category, the fate of the nation, the outcomes of which but as we have seen, a great deal if not most of depended upon man's ability to master the en­ the logic behind it spawned from social expecta­ vironment. Though he was far too young to have tions and beliefs. Although its adherents claimed fought in the Civil War, he made frequent refer­ scientific legitimacy, this was more a vulnerabil­ ence to downpours that had supposedly followed ity than a strength, as it demanded testable and the momentous clashes from that conflict, and falsifiable grounds for inquiry. Its great resiliency probably imagined that just as in those battles, and durability-its "curious persistency," to bor­ unwavering determination would be necessary row Harrington's term-came from the fact that for victory. "In these experiments we are follow­ it appealed to intuitive and obvious ideas that ing a practice that absolutely and unfailingly did were firmly anchored in contemporary notions produce rain during the Civil War," he wrote, in­ of nature and the "rightness" of the American voking the socially persuasive power of memory conquest of North America. and experience. "Every man who was in battle In his Harper's Weekly essay, Post perfectly knows that rain invariably followed the heavy encapsulated the spirit that had motivated both concussions."54 Nonexperiential knowledge, by him and concussionists past: 216 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2013

In the spring of 1911 crops on the ranch began porary relevance. Concussionists from Powers to to need rain. There were no signs of nature Post made gestures toward the laws of meteorol­ that pointed to any immediate conclusion of ogy and physics but in the main traded in social the drought. There was no method by which logic, grounding their arguments in appeals to I could run irrigation ditches in time to allevi­ subjective experience, common sense, folk knowl­ ate conditions. It was under the stress of these edge, intuition, and the like. conditions that I resolved to carry the war into The concussionism craze also illustrates the the country of Jupiter Pluvius and bombard fundamental contingency of the climate change him until he surrendered enough rain to save denial movement. About a century ago, when the the crops. 58 socioeconomically Progressive ethos of continual growth and improvement demanded that rain come to arid regions of the country, settlement CONCLUSION boosters assembled a quasi-scientific narrative to Post and the settlers had come to the West with support the belief that weather was something the intention of conquering and reshaping what that could be easily controlled and manipulated they found there to suit their needs. When some­ through artificial means. However, when the thing stood in the way of that vision, whatever it prospect of climate change has shifted from ad­ was, Americans relied on their will and strength vantageous to potentially catastrophic, followers to smash through the obstacle. of a similar conservative doctrine now find it pru­ In Post's experiments, we can discern dis­ dent to deny the possibility that human activity tinct echoes of the very same driving forces that could be the cause of climate change, or that such informed the mentality of the previous gen­ a phenomenon could even exist. The idea com­ erations of concussionists. Where Dyrenforth mon to both cases is that the invisible hand of sported cavalry boots and bestowed upon himself economic progress will reshape the environment a lofty military rank, Post conducted "battles" for the benefit of producer and consumer. In this and made sure that the Civil War was never far way we see that the latter-day aversion to the pos­ from anyone's mind in the process. Like-minded sibility of climate change is in no wayan essential Americans picked up on these threads, which facet of the American conservatism, but rather we see played out in the frequent and occasion­ is contingent upon the perceived consequences ally strained allusions to weapons and battles in that climate change itself is seen to engender. contemporary literature. From this we can under­ stand that the prevailing mentality of dominat­ NOTES ing the continent from the 1890s to the 1910s tended to conflate conquest of the natural world 1. Clark C. Spence and James R. Fleming have can. with military conquest.59 As well, from the publi­ tributed probably the most thorough treatments of the cation of War and the Weather in 1870 onward, a subject of "scientific" rainmaking in the United States. powerful social logic worked behind the scenes to To answer the question of why the theory persisted, provide a convincing and durable foundation for Spence points to a wave of sympathetic news coverage that immediately followed the first desert volleys. See the belief-a logic that drew on intuitive and ex­ Spence, "The Dyrenforth Rainmaking Experiments: periential knowledge while downplaying abstract A Government Venture in 'Pluviculture,'" Arizona and and objective scientific principles. the West 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1961): 232. While Spence is The persistence of concussionism in the na­ correct, there are reasons to doubt that the impact of tional consciousness illuminates a mechanism favorable press could have been so great. Consider the by which nonexpert theories about the environ­ not insignificant volume of skeptical press published ment can ostensibly root themselves in "science" during the same period, the brevity of the wave (not yet can withstand both material counterevidence longer than two weeks), and the fact that the press and adamant opposition from the scientific es­ was almost unanimously against the idea thereafter. tablishment-a phenomenon with clear contem- Fleming argues that the experiments should be un- MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS 217 derstood within the pattern of "pathological science," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 77, July 1888, propelled not by pure inductive reasoning but rather 232-45. by tacit (and often unconscious) political, social, and 7. Spence, "Dyrenforth Rainmaking Experiments," cultural norms. See Fleming, Fixing the Sky: The Check­ 207,211-12. ered History of Weather and Climate Control (New York: 8. Ibid., 212. Columbia University Press, 2010), 9, 74-75. I believe 9. Dyrenforth usually styled himself "general," Fleming's notion a good one, especially in that it helps a title reproduced by most contemporary sources, explain the surge of positive press noted by Spence. In though others prefixed his name with different ranks this essay, I take a position similar to Fleming, but lo­ such as major or colonel. Spence notes: "Dependable cate and examine the particular historical factors that biographical information on Dyrenforth is scarce and were in play in the late nineteenth and early twenti­ complicated by his own fertile imagination and the fact eth century that lent sticking power to the concussive that for purposes of simplification he dropped the 'St.' theory of rainmaking. I support this position through from his name and changed the spelling of the family recourse to known contemporaneous cultural attitudes name from 'Dyhrenfurth.'" Both variations and some and analysis of relevant literature such as newspaper other renderings of his surname occasionally appear articles and magazine features. Furthermore, I attempt in contemporary accounts. See Spence, "Dyrenforth to trace a connection between the mindset of the con­ Rainmaking Experiments," 214n24. Nevertheless, it cussionist stalwarts and the modern anthropogenic cli­ seems probable that Dyrenforth did indeed serve in mate change denial movement, in order to offer some the Civil War as a Union major, but no higher. See insight into the mentality behind the latter. Fleming, Fixing the Sky, 65. 2. Neil Maher's essay "'Crazy Quilt Farming on 10. Spence, "Dyrenforth Rainmaking Experi­ Round Land': The Great Depression, the Soil Conser­ ments," 216-17. vation Service, and the Politics of Landscape Change 11. Ibid., 216. on the Great Plains during the New Deal Era," Western 12. Dyrenforth and Newcomb, "Can We Make It Historical Quarterly 31, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 322-24, Rain?" 395-96. demonstrates this same ethos at work in the federal rec­ 13. "Experiments in Production of Rainfall," Senate tilinear land allocation program, which until the New Executive Document No. 45, 52nd Cong., 1st sess., 18f. Deal imposed a simple grid system on the land west 14. Henry Holdes to J. M. Rusk, undated but prob­ of the Mississippi, deliberately ignoring local topogra­ ably early 1891, RG 95 (Records of the Forest Service), phy. Maher shows that one effect of this system was to entry 123, box 1, National Archives, College Park, MD. symbolically flatten and homogenize the terrain of the 15. "Uncle Jerry Rusk Is Missing a Mighty Fine Op­ American west. portunity," Wichita Daily Eagle, August 1, 1891. 3. "Not only has it been my experience that rain 16. Qtd. in Spence, "Dyrenforth Rainmaking Ex­ follows soon after every heavy cannonading," wrote a periments," 217-18. former Union general "but that this was very gener­ 17. "Bombs Cause Rain to Fall," Washington Post, ally conceded and understood in the army." Qtd. in August 13, 1891, 1. Robert G. Dyrenforth and Simon Newcomb, "Can We 18. "Rain Made to Order," New York Times, August Make It Rain?" North American Review, no. 419, Octo­ 20, 1891, 1; ''A Heavy Rain Fell," New York Times, Au­ ber 1891, 390. gust 22, 1891, 5. 4. Connected to this, we might also consider the 19. Fleming, Fixing the Sky, 67. special fondness some Americans have for their consti­ 20. Dyrenforth and Newcomb, "Can We Make It tutional right to bear arms. A hypothesis that firearms Rain?" 396. could be used as a tool for improving climate would 21. "Attempts to Make Rain," New York Times, June only have further empowered the Second Amendment 24,1891,3. and thereby struck an appealing chord for a great many 22. "Why Not Have Some Rain Here?" New York Americans. Times, August 25, 1891, 8. 5. Chris J. Magoc, Environmental Issues in American 23. "Rain Called at Will," New York Times, August History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 187. 26, 1891, 1. 6. Louise Pound, "Nebraska Rain Lore and Rain­ 24. "And There Was Rain," Washington Post, August making," California Folklore Quarterly 5, no. 2 (April 28,1891,3. 1946): 131. For a primary account of this theory, see 25. The trope of "environment as enemy" was Frank H. Spearman, "The Great American Desert," already a deeply entrenched one by the 1890s. The 218 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2013 case of the u.s. Army Signal Office provides a good mockingly, to meteorologists. Bernard Mergen, Weath­ example of this. In 1870 the federal government estab­ er Matters: An American Cultural HistOTY since 1900 (Law­ lished the first national weather reporting service from rence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 7 -8. the remnants of the army's Signal Corps. The goal of 34. "Man-Made Rain," New York Times, August 28, the new Signal Office-still under the jurisdiction of 1891,4. the War Department-was largely a continuation of its 35. "The Rain-Compelling Emissaries," New YOTk wartime function of providing intelligence on enemy Times, August 10,1891,4. movements as rapidly as possible, with the difference 36. "His Statement Doubted," October 7, 1891, RG being that in 1870 the enemy was now weather pat:­ 95 (Records of the Forest Service), entry 123, box 1. terns that threatened to disrupt agriculture, transpor­ 37. Qtd. in Spence, "Dyrenforth Rainmaking Ex­ tation, and commerce in general. Explained its chief periments," 214. signal officer in 1870: "The telegraph can announce 38. "Gen. Dyrenforth's Alleged Success," n.d., and meteorological observations, statistics, and reports giv­ "His Statement Doubted," October 7, 1891, RG 95. ing the presence, the course, and the extent of storms 39. "Still No Rain Falls," New YOTk Times, Novem­ ... and their probable approach, as it would, in time ber 16, 1891, 8. of war, those of an enemy." James Rodger Fleming, 40. "The Rain-Making Fiasco," New York Times, No­ "Storms, Strikes, and Surveillance: The u.S. Army Sig­ vember 16, 1891, 5. nalOffice, 1861-1891," Historical Studies in the Physical 41. George Curtis, "The Facts About Rain-Mak­ and Biological Sciences 30, no. 2 (2000): 318-19. ing," Engineering Magazine, July 1892, 550. 26. The article "Producing Rain Artificially" in the 42. These pieces are, respectively, George E. Curtis, British periodical Symons's Monthly MeteOTological Maga­ "Rain-Making in Texas," Nature 44, no. 1147 (October zine, vol. 26, issue 36 Quly 1891), 81, described it as 22, 1891): 594; Lucien l. Blake [professor of engineer­ "chiefly composed of accounts of batrles followed by ing and physics, University of Kansas), "Can We Make thunderstorms and more or less heavy rain-with a few It Rain?" Science 18, no. 460 (November 27, 1891): pages of theoretical matrer." 296-97; William Morris Davis [professor of physical 27. E.M.L. "For the Rain Makers" New YOTk Times, geography, Harvard University), "The Theories of Ar­ September 6, 1891, 20; "The Rain-Compelling Emis­ tificial and Natural Rainfall," American MeteOTOlogical saries," New YOTk Times, August 10, 1891,4. }ournal9 (March 1892): 493-502; and George Curtis, 28. "The Artificial Production of Rain," Scientific "The Facts about Rain-Making." American, December 20, 1890, 390. 43. John Tice, "Do Batrles Cause Storms?" The Me­ 29. "Man-Made Rain," New YOTk Times, August 28, teOTologist, vol. 1, June 1876, 140. 1891,4. 44. Alexander Macfarlane, "On Rainmaking," 30. The esteemed astronomer Simon Newcomb of Transactions of the Texas Academy of Science, vol. 1, No­ Johns Hopkins University took the negative position: vember 1893, passim. "A thousand detonations can produce no more effect 45. Spence, "Dyrenforth Rainmaking Experi­ upon the air, or upon the watery vapor in it," he wrote, ments," 228; Jeff A. Townsend, "Nineteenth and "than a thousand rebounds of a small boy's rubber ball Twentieth Century Rainmaking in the United States" would produce upon a stone wall." Dyrenforth and (MA thesis, Texas Tech University, 1974), 33. Newcomb, "Can We Make It Rain?" 401. 46. "To Be Well Tested," New YOTk Times, August 31. Ibid., 390-91. 31, 1891. 32. "Experiments in Production of Rainfall," S. 47. Louise Pound, "Nebraska Rain Lore and Rain Doc. No. 45, 4, 53-59. Making," 135. See also Everetr Dick, "The Great Ne­ 33. This could well be regarded as a particular braska Drouth of 1894: The Exodus," Arizona and the manifestation of a broad public dismissal of meteo­ West 15, no. 4 (Winter 1973): 338; Nebraska State rology that prevailed in the late nineteenth century, Historical Society, "Rainmakers," July 1999, http:// which regarded the young science as a needless hyper­ www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/timeline disciplinization of something simple, intuitive, and /rainmakers.htm; Jim McKee, "Drought Brought obvious. After all, what could a sling hygrometer (or Out New Rainmaking Theories and Quacks," Lincoln any equally abstruse widget) possibly reveal about the Journal Star, September 12, 2010, http://journalstar weather that a quick glance out the window or the ach­ .com/news/local! article_ eec083 8c-bc66-11 df-b03 7 ing of an arthritic joint could not? Within this schema, -OO1cc4c03286.html?mode=story. the title of "professor" was sometimes applied, usually 48. Clark C. Spence, The Rainmakers: American "Plu- MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS 219 viculture" to World War II (Lincoln: University of Ne­ experiments rarely failed to draw sizable crowds of be­ braska Press, 1980), 46. mused and bewildered onlookers, and there can be no 49. Charles William Post had built an empire of doubt that they were spectacular shows for those lucky food products throughout the 1890s, propelled by the enough to witness them. But while the amusement nationwide success of products such as Grape Nuts, factor certainly drew in crowds, it seems doubtful that Post Toasties, and Postum (a cereal-based, caffeine-tree the show itself was responsible for the tenacious per­ coffee alternative). sistence of the concussionist position over the span of 50. Dyrenforth was, generously, a meteorological years and decades. Indeed, not all those who watched dilettante, and certainly had no formal training or were convinced of the wisdom of what they were see­ professional experience in the field; to describe him as ing. An eyewitness to a 1911 experiment thought the "a well-known scientist and meteorologist" is so grossly director a little "teched in the head." Qtd. in Eaves, misleading as to be essentially the equivalent of a lie, "Charles William Post, the Rainmaker," 429. especially in light of the fact that Post claims earlier in 53. Eaves, "Charles William Post, the Rainmaker," the article to have done "exhaustive study" and "years 428,435-36. of research" on the topic. Furthermore, if Post did in­ 54. Eaves and Hutchinson, Post City, 130. deed research the topic as thoroughly as he claimed, 55. Ibid., 127. he cannot possibly have missed the deluge of literature 56. C. W. Post, "Making Rain While the Sun in both newspapers and scientific periodicals that de­ Shines," Harper's Weekly, February 27, 1912. clared the experiments a failure. 57. Mark W. Harrington, "Weather Making, An­ 51. Post's "battles" were larger and costlier than any cient and Modern," Annual Report of the Smithsonian undertaken by Dyrenforth's party, with hundreds and Institution, 1894, 249. often thousands of pounds of dynamite (at a total cost 58. Post, "Making Rain While the Sun Shines." of about $2,500) exploded in each ttial. Charles Dud­ 59. Fleming has observed that the militarist dimen­ ley Eaves calculates that Post expended the formidable sion of weather modification continues today, having sum of $50,000 over three years before his death in persisted through the twentieth century and grown 1914 and also had plans to continue his battles indefi­ stronger during the Cold War, as Pentagon scientists nitely. "Charles William Post, the Rainmaker," South­ dreamed up methods and devices to weaponize the western Historical Quarterly 43, no. 4 (April 1940): 436. weather at the cost of "declaring war on the strato­ 52. Qtd. in Charles Dudley Eaves and C. A. sphere." James R. Fleming, "The Climate Engineers," Hutchinson, Post City, Texas (Austin: Texas State His­ Wilson Quarterly 31, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 48-49, 60. torical Association, 1952), 131. Dyrenforth's and Post's