Upstream Influence: the Economy, the State, and Oregon's Landscape, 1860-2000”
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Upstream Influence: The Economy, the State, and Oregon's Landscape, 1860-2000 Devon McCurdy A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2013 Reading Committee: John M. Findlay, Chair Linda L. Nash Margaret Pugh O’Mara Program Authorized to Offer Degree: History © Copyright 2013 Devon McCurdy University of Washington Abstract “Upstream Influence: The Economy, the State, and Oregon's Landscape, 1860-2000” Devon McCurdy Chair of the supervisory committee: Professor John M. Findlay History This dissertation examines the ways that people in Oregon mobilized the state apparatus linked to federal, state, and city governments. It traces their efforts at state mobilization across nearly a century and a half of economic and environmental change. Two shifting ideologies shaped Oregon and its landscape between 1860 and 2000. A producerist ideology assumed a rural label and an ideology centered on place assumed an urban label. The development of these twin ideologies hardened what had been contingent boundaries between city and country. That development enshrined in Oregon politics a division between urban and rural interests. This division was never simple and rarely involved clear urban dominance over a hinterland. Portland’s relationship with the rural Northwest and the distinction between urban and rural people and landscapes that shaped it were as much the product of rural ideology as urban power. Portland was subject to upstream influence. Five episodes in Oregon and Northwest history support and explain this argument. This dissertation considers the role that global and national finance played in shaping the Northwest economy in the nineteenth century and the response that Northwest farmers made to economic elites. It details the effects of hinterland trade on Portland’s environment and examines the limited efforts that progressive-era reformers made to ameliorate those effects. It traces the growth of the state during the New Deal by detailing the debates over and development of federal electrical power policy in the Northwest. The last chapters examine the ways Oregonians responded to environmental and economic change in the late twentieth century. These chapters provide an intellectual, economic, and political history of Oregon’s land use planning system. They demonstrate that rural, urban, and suburban Oregonians supported land use planning as a way to protect the resource economy in the 1970s. That support waned only as the economy, particularly associated with timber production, changed after 1980. To Becca and to my brothers TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii Introduction Upstream Influence 1 Chapter One Bushels, Bonds, and Ballots: Ideology and the Hinterland, 1860-1890 26 Chapter Two Hinterland Trade in the City: Urban Inequality and the Ethic of Place, 1890-1930 100 Chapter Three New Deal Planning and the Empowerment of the Rural Northwest 171 Chapter Four Shaping the Land to Save the Economy in the 1970s 240 Chapter Five Economic Change, Population Growth, and the Oregon Story, 1980-2000 303 Conclusion Data Farms, Power, Tax Credits, and History 360 Bibliography 368 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Stephen Crane’s characters try to row to shore after a shipwreck in his 1897 story “The Open Boat.” Crane says of the character who serves as the author’s alter-ego, “there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life.” With the shore in sight, I am reminded of Crane’s story (and hopeful nobody pushes the metaphor too far by dying in the surf). Historians are, if not cynical, then awfully skeptical and attendant to nuance. And the humanities seem these days to be in rough seas. Yet the comradeship and, I would add, the generosity of my companions have made the past years profoundly meaningful. I am grateful for the company and the help at the oars. John Findlay put my interests before his own. He read chapters and several versions of the complete draft with the thoroughness that his previous students warned me about. John returned comments quickly, moving through the sixty pages of chapter four in two or three days. He scheduled meetings and gave of his time and advice freely. And in 2012 he directed money from his research fund to support my work. John pushed me to tie chapters together and to think about the whole when I thought only about the parts. What strengths there are in the dissertation owe themselves to an effort to impress John and to respond to his comments. John is brilliant, funny, and a way better squash player than I. I could not imagine a better dissertation advisor than John, but if I were to search, I would look toward Margaret O’Mara and Linda Nash. Linda and Margaret took time out of their summer breaks to read chapter drafts and slogged through the defensible draft on short notice. iii Linda pushed me to develop my discussion of the state. Margaret suggested a slate of additional readings, each one of which helped me make the dissertation better. Thaisa Way read only the final product, but she read it closely, and saved me from countless errors of argument and expression. Julie Greene and Peter Boag, then at University of Colorado, set me on my course in graduate school. Bob Bonner and Annette Igra at Carleton College taught me more about history than anybody, including that I would enjoy eight years in the library studying it. The staffs of the University of Oregon Special Collections, the Bonneville Power Administration Library, the Oregon State Archives, the Reed College archives, and the National Archives in Seattle made me at home. Cheryl Oakes and her colleagues at the Forest History Society recommended sources I would not otherwise have consulted and treated me to lunch in the five days I spent with them. I could not have written this dissertation and would not have enjoyed writing it so much without help from Scott Daniels at the Oregon Historical Society and Mary Hansen at the Portland City Archives and Records Center. Mary and Scott embody the best of the profession. Over several months I watched them greet archives veterans and newcomers alike with warmth, enthusiasm, and good advice. Scott helped me with maps. Mary cracked me up as she piled nuisance petitions on my desk. The History Department at the University of Washington provided two quarters of fellowship during the writing and researching of the project. The support allowed me to travel to archives in Eugene, Portland, Salem, and Durham. The department also provided a quarter of Hanauer Dissertation Fellowship to make post-defense revisions leisurely. The Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest funded travel in spring 2012. The Forest History Society’s Alfred Bell fund paid for a trip to Durham in spring 2013. The Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington let me present my work when I received their Pacific Northwest History Scholarship in spring iv 2013. The Western History Dissertation Workshop funded a trip to University of New Mexico in spring 2013, where I received bracing comments on chapter two. All this support was generous and I was lucky to have it. During nine quarters of post-exams teaching, I was grateful to UAW Local 4121 for ensuring that teaching at the University of Washington covers the bills and leaves time to progress toward graduation. And I am grateful to the University of Washington’s keen and hardworking students for keeping me on my toes and reminding me why I was doing what I was doing. I cherish the friends I made in graduate school. I read more of Steve Beda’s dissertation than he read of mine, mostly because he was foolish enough to leave one of his chapter drafts on his desk in our shared office. Still, Steve put up with three years of conversations (or monologues) about timber stumpage prices and electrical transmission policies. His rolling eyes kept the dissertation from being drier than it is. I promised Steve in a research trip together that he would have his own paragraph here. I think, though, that he must share it with his wonderful partner Jess Cronce and with Amanda, who is the best Beda. Elina Galperin, Jacob Greenberg, and Michael Aguirre held late-night conversations with me about colonialism, liminality, and all sorts of other things not appropriate to recount here. Mary Anne Henderson taught me to beware the man. She also made two trips to Louisville not only tolerable, but fun. Tim Wright, Brian Schefke, and Wendi Lindquist did their level best to keep me humble. Jessica Shaw Chance and other Forest Service friends made me laugh so hard my gut hurt. Mountaineering friends, especially David Seidman, reminded me of life outside of graduate school, even if they did it by asking, “what are you going to do with that?” Tom Milac demanded daily status updates. Hannah and Bec Chapin, Greg Zwisler, and the rest of the Sunday dinner crew bucked me up and fed me. Soren Peterson, Michael Gonzales, and I left v Northfield to confront PhD programs at the same time. They answered their phones to give good advice and listen to bad advice. Ian and Brendan McCurdy climbed mountains, ate pie, punched shoulders, and did other brotherly things. They are my fifth and sixth favorite brothers, though not necessarily in that order. Brother tradition requires me to leave the first four places open for anybody better who comes along. It is my great good fortune that Kayla Schott-Bresler and Natalie Gutlzer claimed two of the top spots. I tried to dissuade Kayla from joining me in graduate school, but am glad she did not listen.