Source:Fleming-war-gardens/content
THE story today is in the main retrospective; "then and now" are sharply contrasted. We go back a century to learn of conditions similar to those that disturb us now. We hear again the call to the fields and the factory. We study our municipal and suburban growths and learn lessons in economics. We think deeply. We are concerned, nay anxious. We ask, is history repeating itself? We live in perilous days and we are justly disturbed.
Broadly a question of feeding a nation—other nations—presents itself. Our country must do more than furnish soldiers-belligerents. We must feed them and their allies. Each community must do more toward feeding itself, that the surplus crops may go abroad. We feel justified in stating that Pittsburgh is doing its bit in all respects.
The "back to the soil" movement, born of the necessity of these war times, has been exemplified by the cultivation of millions of small areas throughout the United States. These have been given the title "war gardens." The back yards, the vacant city lots, the public grounds otherwise not used, parts of steep hillsides, railroad rights-of-way paralleling the tracks, all have been utilized to raise vegetable crops to lessen the high cost of living.
Looking out upon the hills surrounding Pittsburgh one can see tracts of land under cultivation that have not been turned up by the plow for a decade, in some instances more than a decade. This is especially true of the South Hills district. All around the city great areas have been turned into residence sections or given over to manufacturing plants. The river bottoms on both sides of the Monongahela and the Ohio at McKees Rocks are conspicuous examples of admirable soil for the growth of garden truck, abandoned, for other purposes. A most conspicuous example is Neville Island; gradually truck farming is ceasing there and manufacturing increasing. Rich, loamy soil easily fertilized within easy reach of a mammoth and inordinate market, with cheap freights and river transportation, and the more modern motor truck service—all these considered lead to the contemplation of what Pittsburgh has lost in the passing of its suburban small farms.
In the grasping of this readily tillable land the railroads have been the pioneers. Low grades, accessibility to water for all their purposes room for vast yards for storage, classification and train make-up purposes, have been powerful motives in securing this ground for railroad use.
Then the finished road invited the manufacturer. Quick delivery and shipments were made possible by the factory sidetrack and switch to the main line. The factory demanded workmen; the families of these men must have homes. Convenience dictated these should be close to the workshops of the wage-earners; towns sprang up, grew, expanded into small cities. Witness Braddock, Homestead, Duquesne, Swissvile [sic], Rankin, Pitcairn, New Kensington, Clairton, Coraopolis, Verona, McKees Rocks and the rest.
He is not very old who can not remember the cornfields and other growing crops on the site of McKees Rocks, the shocks of corn and fodder standing snow-covered in the winters in truly rural form. Likewise, who of 50 years and upward cannot remember the green fields and well-tilled bottoms and hillsides where is now great manufacturing Homestead? Here on the triangular-shaped flat was one of the richest alluvial deposits about Pittsburgh; fine arable land always well tilled, rising gradually to the hills. The original tract of the original town was secured by John McClure and descended to his son, Abdiel, who died about 30 years ago.
In the rise of a manufacturing town and in the diverting of most excellent soil for other purposes than agriculture we have a luminous example in Homestead. The tract was purchased by the Homestead Bank and Life Insurance Company in 1871 and the plan of lots laid out in August of that year.
The holding corporation with an authorized capital of $1,000,000, advertised that it presented advantages to the wage-earner never before combined in any savings institution. It confined deposits to the very basis of security, the purchase of real estate, and the building of homesteads to be sold to occupants and paid for in 10 yearly installments without interest, subject to the condition that if the purchaser under these terms died before making all his payments no further demands would be made on his heirs. Moreover the fact was dwelt on that this company was the only one that used its funds exclusively in a way to benefit the industrial classes by reducing the cost of the first necessity of civilization, the home.
All this sounded good and was potent in securing buyers for the "Homestead Plan" lots. Let us see the sequel.
The company in 1872 was still advertising "advantages," stating that a number of choice sites still remained in Hometead [sic] "the most promising suburban village of Pittsburgh." The company had also purchased a beautiful tract in the former Twenty-second Ward, Pittsburgh, at City Farm station on the Connellsville Railroad, now the Baltimore and Ohio, and within 10 minutes' walk of Swissvale on the Pennsylvania Railroad. That a number of dwellings had already been erected and disposed of at "Homestead" was a standing announcement in the company's advertisement.
Prominent men were in the Homestead Bank and Life Insurance Company. James H. Hopkins, subsequently a member of Congress from Pittsburgh, was at the head. They meant well. The first sale of lots occurred in September, 1871, and was conducted in the manner customary in those years, "music and junketing," we are informed, adding to the pleasures of the occasion.
A year later the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railroad, now the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania, gave direct rail communication with Pittsburgh—rather with the South Side boroughs, then not yet a part of Pittsburgh. By 1873 several hundred houses had been erected in Homestead. That year the panic came and as one historian puts it, "the panic dissipated the prospects by which investments had been secured." We have heard of mist and dew being dissipated—perhaps some have noted a speed something like it in the Homestead early boom dissipation. The town grew slowly. Prior to 1880 there were less than 600 inhabitants. We can not go into the history of the town here. The point to be made is, Homestead was a mere village until the great mills came; first the Bessemer Steel Company plant, and the Andrew Kloman's mill on the tract adjoining the City Poor Farm, now the site of the armor plate mills. Homestead began to grow with the making of the first steel, March 19, 1881, and the first rail, August 9, the same year.
Homestead's area has long since passed as an agricultural community, carrying with it much surrounding territory. Today there are thousands in that community to be fed with the products of distant soil.
The McClure homestead and farm prior to 1876 and "City Farm" about the same time, are shown today; also a portrait of Abdiel McClure.
One might go extensively into rural conditions about Pittsburgh in the decades before, during and after our Civil War; gradually tracing our municipal growth by expansion, the building upon vast open areas, and the annexation of contiguous territory, in 1868 and 1874. The first annexation since 1849—that of 1868—gave us much rural territory. The East Liberty valley was a beautiful stretch of suburban home-sites surrounded by gardens and orchards; so, too, the Highland and Homewood districts. Squirrel Hill, as we now designate a vast district stretching from outer Forbes street to the hills overlooking the Monongahela River, was more truly rural; in fact, much of it is today not built over. Until rapid transit came, within two decades, with the trolley system, this region was a veritable truck garden, orchards and meadows intervening. Then the desirability of this beautiful plateau for building purposes became strikingly evident and we see the Murdoch, McComb, Hutchinson, Murray, Phillips and many other tracts passing into beautiful residence sections. The vast Schenley holdings of nearly 400 acres in this section we know now as Schenley Park. Into these new residence districts there has poured a steady stream of population. No longer can the soil produce; where once the residents on their own ground could raise three-fourths of the food necessary for family use, the same ground today produces nothing From greater distances each year food products have to be carried; at greater cost too, in increasingly greater quantities.
So, too, one can trace all our suburban growth; the more recent trend to the South Hills region, Castle Shannon and Mt. Lebanon ways. On the North Side, too, to Bellevue and West View, and along the Butler trolley routes—the same transpositions and the same conditions—happily not so far advanced as in some other sections, but the day is not far off when with increasing population the residents in these sections will become as much dependent upon other sections of the country for food as any other part of Pittsburgh, or any of the industrial towns where suburban cultivation, except in the recent war gardens, is practically nil.
Slight wonder the necessity of these war gardens. Many who now get fresh vegetables at first hand—their own—relishing their garden products' freshness and consequent lusciousness, will keep on gardening from season to season. Tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, corn, lettuce and other vegetables easily raised will still be grown in the vacant and hitherto non-productive areas, large and small, and the backyard will long continue to be utilized to keep down the high cost of living.
As for "Peter Tumbledown" and his ilk, who have long since permitted weeds to choke up their gardens—too much trouble to pull—these lazy, indifferent folks should and will be content with the frequently wilted and far-carried vegetable stuff from the produce yards—fresh enough when started and well conveyed, but often meeting glutted markets, and again, "combinations for holding" in order to enhance prices, the stuff getting no better all the time.
From conditions we face now, we turn to the consideration of new phases of old conditions, the decline of agriculture, the abandonment of numerous farms and the steady and persistent congestion in our cities. Startling indeed are the thoughts of provisioning a great community—statistically considered. The first aim of an enemy is an efficient blockade. England has discovered this. It may be done by submarine, airship or blockading squadron but if in any way efficient and steady, produces a scarcity of foodstuffs and then starvation looms up, and surrender. Hence England is back to the soil, husbanding every grain, utilizing the flower garden, the park and the playground.
From condtions [sic] today we can pass to the contemplation of conditions of 100 years ago, just after the close of long warfare, not so fiendish, perhaps, in its conduct as that of today, but leaving civilization affected the same as the one in progress will leave it.
Agriculture and manufacturing were of paramount importance in 1817 and the decades following. We can read of those days and watch our growth in each decade with absorbing interest and learn much from the history and economic study presented today.
Let us look for a few moments at conditions in the United States following the War of 1812. James Monroe was inaugurated President March 4, 1817; Daniel D. Tompkins was Vice-President, succeeding James Madison and Elbridge Gerry. Monroe was an able man with an able cabinet, among them John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; William Wirt, Attorney General. President Monroe gave us the celebrated Monroe Doctrine which is still a live issue.
It is a small book that is before us. Its title is "A History of the United States of America, on a Plan Adapted to the Capacity of Youth and Designed to Aid the Memory by Systematic Arrangement and Interesting Associations, illustrated by engravings, by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, third edition, printed and published by A. Phelps, and sold wholesale and retail at his bookstore, Greenfield, Mass., 1824." This is a typical form of book title of the era. The Rev. Goodrich was a noted historian. He is not to be confounded with S. G. Goodrich whose histories were in use in our city schools 50 years ago. Charles A. Goodrich was very methodical in arrangement. At the end of each historical period in his system he appends two or more pages of "notes" with subheads—Manners, Religion, Trade and Commerce, Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, Population, Education.
In these pages we have many facts worthy of repetition and pertinent to the story today by way of retrospection. Perhaps Goodrich's exact text quoted will best inform us. He "notes after Monroe's inauguration as follows:
Manners—The only noticeable change of manners, which seems to have taken place during this period, arose from the spirit of pecuniary speculation, which pervaded the country during the war. Money was borrowed with facility, and fortunes often were made in a day. Extravagance and profligacy were, to some extent, the consequence. The return of peace and the extensive misfortunes which fell upon every part of the community, counteracted these vices and restored more sober and industrious habits.
Trade and Commerce—During this period trade nad [sic] commerce were crippled by foreign restrictions, our own acts of non-intercourse, and at length, by the war with England. During this war our carrying trade was destroyed nor was it restored by the peace of 1815.
On the return of peace, immense importations were made from England, the country being destitute of English merchandise. The market was soon glutted, prices fell, and extensive bankruptcies were the consequence.
Agriculture—Agriculture during this period cannot be said to have made great advances.
An excessive disposition in the people for trade and speculation drew off the attention of the more intelligent and active part of the community, and directed much of the capital of the country to other objects. Upon the return of peace, however, when mercantile distresses overspread the land, agriculture was again resorted to as one of the surest means of obtaining a livelihood. Men of capital, too, turned their attention to farming; agricultural societies were established in all parts of the country; more enlightened methods of culture were introduced, and agriculture became not only one of the most profitable, but one of the most popular objects of pursuit.
Arts and Manufactures—During the war which occurred in this period the intercourse with England and other places being stopped, the country was soon destitute of these articles which had been supplied by English manufactories. Accordingly, the people began to manufacture for themselves. Extensive manufactures were established for almost every sort of merchandise.
Such was their success at the outset that an immense capital was soon invested in them, and the country began to be supplied with every species of manufacture from our own establishments. After the peace, the country being inundated with British goods, these establishments suffered the severest embarrassments, and many of them were entirely broken down. A considerable portion of them, however, were maintained and continued to flourish.
In 1817 our population was about 9,500,000. The paragraphs quoted from Mr. Goodrich's little work will give us an adequate idea of the economic conditions of the period. The necessity for more extensive agriculture became intensified. Therefore we find Zadok Cramer giving long disserations [sic] on farming in his "Magazine Almanack" for 1817 and the succeeding years, and we learn from the history of those times that men of every condition became interested in farming.
These excerpts from the "Magazine Almanack" for 1817 tell their own story and it is worthy of remembrance that the venerable and illustrious men felt honored by their election, and expressed themselves in appropriate language—words that appeal to us by their sincerity and worth. Mr. Cramer gives his authority for insertion in the headline:
FROM THE NEW YORK EVENING POST.
Manufactures—On the 13th of June last, the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures in this city, unanimously elected John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison members thereof and directed their secretary to apprise them of this fact by letter. The following is his circular and their answers thereto, which have been obligingly communicated in their respective hand writings, for publication in the Evening Post.
New York, June 14th, 1817.
Sir—The American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures instituted in this city, sensible of the zeal you have uniformly displayed in the promotion of every object connected with the welfare and independence of our country, had the honor to elect you a member at their last meeting, convened on the 13th. inst., for the purpose of initiating into the society, James Monroe, president of the United States.
It would afford me the highest gratification to announce to the society your assent to become one of its members.
"I have the honor to be, Sir,
"With respect and consideration,
"Your obedient servant,
D. Lynch, Jun.
Quincy, June 23, 1817.
Sir—I have received the letter you did me the honor of writing to me on the 14th of this month, announcing to me my election by the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures instituted in New York, as a member an honor they have done me; and to assure them if the best wishes of a man at 81 years of age can promote the wise purposes of their institution, I shall be a useful member. For, according to my superficial view of political economy in civilized society, next to agriculture, manufactures and navigation the third. With agriculture, manufactures and navigation, all the commerce which can be necessary or useful to the happiness of a nation will be secured.
Accept my thanks for the civility with which you have communicated the vote of the society to their and your friend.
JOHN ADAMS.
D. Lynch, jun. esq. Secretary of the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures.
Monticello, June 26, 1817.
Sir—I am thankful for the honor done me by an association with the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures instituted in New York. The history of the last 20 years has been a sufficient lesson for us all to depend for the necessaries on ourselves alone; and I hope that 20 years more will place this American Hemisphere under a system of its own, essentially peaceable and industrious, and not needing to extract its comforts out of the eternal fires raging in the Old World. The efforts of the members of your institution being necessarily engaged in their respective vicinages, I consider myself by their choice as but a link of union between the promoters there and here of the same patriotic objects. Praying you to present to the society my just acknowledgment for this mark of attention, I tender to yourself the assurance of my great respect and consideration.
THOS. JEFFERSON.
Mr. Lynch.
We cannot but admire the thought that some of our great men today might similarly be brought back to the soil and how transcendently pleasant it would be to see President Wilson, Mr. "Pansy" Baker, Mr. "Josy" Daniels, and Mr. "Bob" LaFollette and "T. R." hoeing corn in unison and picking potato bugs, alais [sic] Colorado beetles, into the same tin can.
