The Hudson: A History by Tom Lewis
Later in the summer, I will be attending a National Endowment for the Humanities grant funded workshop on the Hudson River in the 19th Century and the study of place. One of my assigned books is Tom Lewis’ The Hudson: A History. The book is a chronological and thematic look at one of America’s landmark geographical regions, the Hudson River.
The book serves as a reminder of the importance of interdisciplinary studies as it collects the waters of many different disciplines into the great estuary of one story. We get the chance to explore history, politics, environmental science, geology, economics, literature, cartography, botany, architecture, and technology – all of which can add some crucial element to the understanding of a place as rich in human experience as the Hudson River.
In an effort to attract settlement, the Dutch company that settled the Hudson granted liberal and generous rights to the patrons who would settle fifty souls there. They were essentially granted the rights of feudal Lords who would own the land and its resources in perpetuity. For the history of New York and later, Vermont, this assertion of aristocratic rights over land – the pre-disposition to look at “the farmers” as “renters without aspirations of their own would lead to the original conflict with New Hampshire that would eventually lead to Vermont Statehood. Ultimately, it created a system of “come-work-so-that-I-can-reap-the-rewards” that still colors Vermont’s relationship with New York.
I think what was particularly sad about this book is how values run amok ravaged what was once a veritable Eden. The arrival of steam engines, tanneries, chemical plants, electric generation facilities, massive influxes of population, and the unrelenting desire to coin money out of beauty led to a Hudson that no one could swim in, fish in, paint, photograph, or drink. It makes sense why John Muir began to look to the unspoiled West for the beauty that New York had sacrificed, and it makes sense that his friend Theodore Roosevelt (a descendent of the first Dutch families of the Hudson Valley) supported his arguments by declaring regions of the west “off limits” to development. "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,” wrote Muir,
“places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. . . . Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity..."
I was particularly interested in the chapter about the influence of the Hudson Valley on art. “The painter of American scenery has indeed privileges superior to any other” Thomas Cole wrote in his journal in 1835. “All nature here is new to Art." Romantic era painters went to find scenes that no one had ever seen before or that no one had seen in certain lights. In a way, the world around them was laying waste to Eden as they raced to get there to paint it just before it was gone. See Storm King on the Hudson for example.
Question for Comment: What is a place that is interesting to you no matter what discipline you use to look at it? Like Jerusalem or Fenway Park or the Long Trail or your home town.
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