Conveying the radicalism of North Dakota

Today, I delivered lecture on the rise of socialism and the creation of the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. This was quite fun for me, as I am going to be doing my dissertation on the NPL, specifically analyzing the landmark book by Robert Morlan Political Prairie Fire (1955), which I hope to update, incorporating new methods of interpretation into Morlan’s examination of the organization.

We began by exploring socialism in broad terms, then the rise of socialism in North Dakota. Given that traditional socialism revolved around industrial production and collective ownership of production means, many farmers were wary of the system. However, North Dakota was able to attract farmers by incorporating into socialism reforms that were ideal for farmers. The Socialist Party in North Dakota was founded in 1900 in Fargo and joined with the national party in 1902. It advocated state control of industries vital to agricultural production, including mills, elevators, banks, and implement dealers, as well as advocating a state-funded hail insurance program. This type of socialism with agricultural reforms at the center was termed “prairie Socialism” and was forged through the common experience of the Great Plains states facing economic struggles during the late nineteenth century.

These items led to growth in the movement as well as electoral success. In the 1912 elections, eight percent of ballots were cast for Socialist candidates and the cities of Minot, Hillsboro, and Rugby all elected Socialist mayors. There still was some disillusionment on the part of North Dakota farmers to the party, especially being called Socialists. This led to a moderation of the platform of the state party in 1914.

As the state party was moderating its position, a failed flax farmer from Beach, ND came on the scene. Arthur Charles, or A.C. Townley joined the ranks of the state Socialist party in an effort to secure justice for farmers. Having failed at bonanza farming and flax farming, which resulted in bankruptcy to the sum of $80,000, Townley felt that the current system was rigged against the farmer and sought to use the Socialists as a means to enact the reforms farmers needed. However, Townley, despite good organizational methods, including using the Model T and post-dated checks to recruit party members, ran afoul of the Socialists because he was recruiting members that were not “true” Socialists. The party fired Townley in late 1914. A side note was that we briefly touched on early activities, including violence of the International Workers of the World (IWW) that was going on in some parts of the state.

With Townley ousted from the party, the NPL was the next topic presented to students. I spoke about the 1915 legislative session, which saw Townley in Bismarck witnessing the failure of farm bills that would enact reforms. Legislators and others leveled impolite comments against the farmers, including Treadwell Twitchell, who reportedly told farmers that governing was none of their business and to “go home and slop the hogs.” This comment served as a rallying cry for Townley and his followers. Townley and the Wood brothers met at the Woods’ farm in McHenry County in February 1915 and created the Farmers Nonpartisan League, including drafting the platform.

The new League desired to use the Republican Party, then a strong political force in the state, to achieve its goals. The platform outlined the goals of the NPL, which were state control of mills, a terminal elevator, state bank, state control of grain grading, and state hail insurance to name a few ideas. The NPL grew quickly, claiming 30,000 members by fall 1915. Part of this rapid growth was due to Townley’s organizational skills, which used the automobile to travel great distances, and used high dues to make farmers feel a part of the group and invested in its success. Another contributor was the use of media. Socialist publications existed and were popular in the state and region earlier, including the Appeal to Reason and Iconoclast, but these publications would be dwarfed by The Nonpartisan Leader, which became a major publication with twice the circulation of any community newspaper in the state. I briefly pointed out the subtle use of imagery in the cover of the Leader presented in the slide show, which depicted North Dakota as a fair and diminutive women, while the farmer was a strong Pilgrim figure with a large gun on his shoulder, as if to say that the farmer would protect and preserve North Dakota. This imagery was quite appealing to farmers.

This is the point where we had to stop due to running out of time, but I will continue my lecture on Friday by discussing the electoral victory and platform of the NPL, as well as showing a video on what North Dakota was like at the time. Overall, this was my best lecture, but that is likely due to having some experience with the subject.

The Second Dakota Boom-considering women homesteaders

On Friday, we continued our discussion of the Second Dakota Boom. We also handed out our study guide for our exam, which is Monday, and talked a bit about it. The focus of the lecture dealt with speculation and women as homesteaders. Dr. Porter illustrated this on the board, showing that women had a greater tendency to be speculative and to build their homes near others, including other women. Many were young and single for various reasons, and often engaged in emerging career fields for them, including teaching, secretarial work, and others. After discussing the women claiming land in North Dakota, we briefly discussed Jewish communities of homesteaders and other Jewish groups in the state. Due to several factors, North Dakota has always had few Jews residing here, but their story, though minor, is important. No update will come on Monday regarding North Dakota History, as we will be having our exam, but I will post soon.

Getting published

Though I have written several reviews that have been published by The Journal of Military History and On Point: The Journal of Army History, as well as several articles for the History News Network, but on Monday evening, I received a package containing two volumes of ABC-Clio’s Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America, which contains three entries that I wrote. It is really cool for me to see my name in an actual historical reference work. This is the first of what I hope to be many more publications, including journal articles and books as I continue my career. For those of you thinking about the historical profession, publication, no matter how small, is important and vital to getting yourself out into the world of scholarship, so I hope you all have the opportunity to do this as well.

Thinking about online teaching

First, sorry to everyone for not posting lately, but I had a crazy last couple of days, as my laptop crapped out on me with a malicious software attack and had to be restored. On Tuesday, we discussed online teaching with Josh Reidy from Online and Distance Education. It was an interesting discussion, as online teaching is quickly becoming the method of choice for instruction in higher education among students. While more students are taking online courses, many faculty in traditional departments are reluctant. I can not really blame them, as it does represent a possible threat to job security. However, computers have increasingly become a larger force in our everyday lives and education must adapt to this.

I do think that, at least for History, online education is a viable option for delivery of some course content. Upper-division courses would be good for online instruction, as if survey courses and mid-range classes are offered via traditional classroom, where students meet face-to-face with faculty, the more independent nature of upper-division classes could be handled via students doing the readings on their own and contributing to online discussions both textual based, as well as based on audio or video, if technology allows. For graduate programs, many classes could be done online, exclusive of specific methods courses and thesis preparations, which would require some face time with faculty. I will have more to think about this, as I continue with the paper for the class on online and distance education. It will be interesting to see how online education will shape the historical profession and my future career.

By the way, please check out the interesting post by Joan Hawthorne at Teaching Thursday. If you are not checking out this blog, you really should.

The Second Dakota Boom

On Monday, we continued our look at the second Dakota Boom, which included the building of the Soo Line across the state diagonally, which allowed several towns and farmers to have more opportunities for success. We also discussed our upcoming exam on Monday. It will be interesting to see how they do, especially if they did not read the book Giants in the Earth. We had Wednesday off for Veterans Day, so our next meeting will be Friday. I hope all veterans had a good Veterans Day and thank you for your service.

Corruption in North Dakota and the Second Dakota Boom

Today, I covered the lecture in Dr. Porter’s absence. We continued our look at statehood, giving particular attention to the rise of boss politics and the creation of a dependency on Minneapolis/St. Paul of North Dakota. The era of boss politics in North Dakota is characterized by one Alexander McKenzie, who worked on behalf of the Northern Pacific Railroad. North Dakota’s bossism was unique, as boss politics is usually characteristic of more eastern cities, as opposed to rural areas. Further, the duration was particularly long (twenty years). McKenzie did much of his work from various hotels in St. Paul.

In addition to McKenzie, we discussed various opposition movements to the boss politics, including the Farmers’ Alliance and the Populist Party. This led to a mention of the Populist governor Eli Shortridge and the carrying of all state offices, except Secretary of State by the Populists. James Weaver carried North Dakota for the Populists in the 1892 Presidential election by 148 votes out of over 35,000 cast.

After concluding statehood, we briefly looked at the second Dakota Boom. The first book was from 1876-1886 and ended with drought and low grain prices. The second boom began in 1897 and ended in 1915. We briefly talked about the resurgence of inflation and national economic recovery. Overall, this lecture went well and the students were happy to learn that they will get Friday off, as Dr. Porter will still be out of town.

Statehood and North Dakota’s Birthday

After returning from an interesting and fun weekend in Des Moines, IA, I again attended to my duties as TA in North Dakota History. Yesterday was quite interesting, as we finally were able to talk about North Dakota History as a state. It was made all the more special because the date of statehood for North Dakota was November 2, 1889, so we were talking about the creation of the state on its 120th birthday, which was the first time doing so according to Dr. Porter. We learned about the state constitution and how the eastern part of the state received almost all the state institutions via Article XIX. Further, we learned a bit about the vote on prohibition of alcohol, which led to the border towns in Minnesota (E. Grand Forks, Moorhead, and Breckenridge) becoming wild partying places. The railroad influenced the early period of the state heavily, including with elevators and grain grading, which benefitted those loyal to the lines, while punishing those who did not tow the line. I will be lecturing tomorrow since Dr. Porter will be out of town. I will post later today about class, as we will be visited by Dr. Hans Broedel, but more on that later. I hope you had a Happy Halloween and a good weekend.

Thinking about assessment, textbooks, and Dakota Territory

In Tuesday’s class, we had a visit from Dr. Joan Hawthorne, Assistant Provost for Assessment and Achievement at UND. I must admit that while we learned a great deal about assessment, I am not completely convinced of the value of it. Dr. Iseminger posed a question to us about our future in teaching, whether or not we chose this profession to fill out paperwork. I will say that I did not decide to go into the historical profession and teaching to fill out paperwork most of the time.

We also handed in our textbook evaluation assignment. I feel that the assignment was a worthwhile one, albeit a little long in pagination. We examined several textbooks, considering aspects of attitudes on race, gender, events covered, ideology, and prose, to name a few areas. Textbooks have increased their focus towards women and minority groups and have increased space devoted to images and graphics. This makes them less usable to instructors, but there are options. Brief editions of textbooks are a good option, as they are smaller in size, have a better prose, and are often cheaper, which is great students. My choice would be to use a brief edition.

On Wednesday in North Dakota History, we finished our discussion on homesteading, with Dr. Porter and I “building” a twelve foot by fourteen foot shack and using students to represent five people, a calf, and twenty-four chickens, which resulted in a very cramped place. We then turned our attention to Dakota Territory, including mention of William Jayne from my alma mater Illinois College, who was the first territorial governor. We also learned about the idea that almost prevented North Dakota from becoming a state, as there was a plan to divide the territory between Minnesota and give the rest to other states, with the dividing line along the Missouri River. Fortunately that did not happen, otherwise I would be Minnesotan, which comes with having an SNL alum as a Senator and being in Gopher country for hockey (shudders). It will be a fun Friday, as we will finish our discussion of the territory and I will then head to Des Moines, Iowa for the North Central Region Conference for Civil Air Patrol.

Homesteading in North Dakota

Having populated the state with various immigrant groups, per my lecture on Friday, we turned our attention to those hardy souls who dared to gamble with “free” land in North Dakota via the Homestead Act and other measures. I put free in quotations because given the rules and regulations one needed to follow that Dr. Porter elaborated on today, the land hardly seems free, as there was a considerable investment of time and money needed to improve the land per regulation. Many people failed or gave up on Homestead applications, while others bought land outright, or acquired it through illegal means.

One of the more interesting parts of the lecture revolved around the Timber Culture Act (1873-1891), where persons were encouraged to plant specific trees in order to gain additional land. If you have ever been to North Dakota, we do not have a lot of trees, especially in the western part of the state. Our climate is not good for certain trees, which were exactly the ones the government expected to be planted. Needless to say, fraud was rampant and the failed program was quickly repealed. The numbers were amazing, as farmers would have to plant almost three thousand trees on the land to meet requirements. Many were discouraged, as they came to the area to farm wheat, not trees.

We then briefly turned our attention to sod houses, which offered students some interesting pictures of the good, bad, and ugly of sod construction. While such material provided some advantages, there were also drawbacks. If a heavy rain came along, your walls could crumble, as they were made of dirt. Overall, it was an interesting exploration of farm life in North Dakota. Tomorrow, I hope to both discuss happenings in class, as well as thinking about textbooks.

An exciting last few days

The last several days since my last post have been quite interesting and enjoyable. On Friday, October 16, I lectured for Dr. Porter, who was attending the Northern Great Plains History Conference. The experience was interesting, but I survived, as I was able to deal with notes that were fairly light and hard to read. In class we discussed the creation of the Great Northern railroad and then began discussion on the various groups that immigrated to North Dakota.

Later that afternoon, I live-blogged the colloquium on Teaching and Learning in the Memorial Union for the blog Teaching Thursday. It was a unique experience and one I hope to do again, but it does have its frustrations, as in attempting to record details of sessions the best for the blog while a presenter is speaking. You can read my posts on the speech during lunch, afternoon session one, and session two at the blog. Also, be sure to check out there interesting post regarding cheating this week.

On Tuesday, Dr. Mochoruk visited HIST 551 and we learned about the procedures and committees behind tenure, retention, and promotion among faculty. It was an interesting lecture that provided a great amount of helpful information as far as planning a career in academia.

Wednesday, we handed back exams in North Dakota History and then discussed the first part of the sources of North Dakota population. I finished the lecture today and it went much better. My copies of the notes were darker and easier to read, plus Dr. Porter and I took the time to go over the notes so that I knew what she was writing. Things went smoothly, though the class is shy about engagement with questions and one young lady decided texting was better, but I simply ignored her and moved on.

On a whole the week has been good, but I have to finish an assignment for class, which is always somewhat depressing, but it is what I do. My mother is visiting town this weekend, as my grandmother’s birthday is Sunday and my cousin just had her first child on Tuesday, and despite various complications with the birth and other family members, the week is good. Several of us are going to deflate and laugh by going to see Larry the Cable Guy tonight, which will be therapuetic given the last couple of days. Until next time, keep researching and teaching.