{"id":189,"date":"2015-07-23T01:28:25","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T01:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/?p=189"},"modified":"2015-07-23T01:29:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T01:29:45","slug":"back-to-the-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/uncategorized\/back-to-the-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyce Bartlett is a fourth year psychology major at Grinnell College. With aspirations to pursue counseling and the healing arts, she hopes to spend the next couple of years being well in the company of loved ones and good food.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back to the land.\u201d There is something sentimental about this. For land is more than just a physical place. There is an emotional connection associated with going back to the land that symbolizes community, sustainability and well-being. Today, the reality of climate change and a diminishing resource of fossil fuels have sparked movements<\/a> fighting for increased intentionality in our interactions with the land. Using the experience of early American colonialists, I explore how the interaction between human and land reflects the struggle of coming to terms with one\u2019s humanity and how the land came to be conceptualized as a source of holistic well-being. I uncover the properties contributing to the view of land as healthy or unhealthy, specifically during the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century, and consider the benefits of conceptualizing land in this way.<\/p>\n

From the late 1500s to early 1600s, English colonists traversed the Atlantic Ocean to America. The New World was advertised as a profitable opportunity and as such entire families headed to America in pursuit of a better life. While some were pulled toward the New World, others were pushed from England by oppressive religious conflict or financial hardship. Either way, these colonists viewed the land as under their ownership.<\/p>\n

The land of America looked deceptively similar to that of England. However, new dangers such as snakes, poisonous plants, and harsher winter conditions reminded colonists that they were in a foreign land still unbeknownst to them. \u201cFears of dissolution or invasion almost always surface in the early descriptions of the Northwest Territory.\u201d[1]<\/p>\n

In the winter, colonists suffered from poor housing ventilation, unsanitary conditions, and dismal nutrition which increased susceptibility to disease. Epidemics such as smallpox, malaria, measles, and yellow fever had devastating effects on early American settlements. Wyndham Blanton counted 7,549 people entering the colony, but at the end of the 1624 only 1,095 remained.[2]<\/p>\n

Colonial narratives reveal how the understanding of the body was inextricably tied with the \u2018wellness\u2019 of the land.[3] The fact that people were experiencing such powerful reactions to the physical geography of the new frontier has implications for their physical, mental, and emotional health and their approach to healing. Hailing to their European roots, colonists approached healing through the lens of humoral theory<\/a>. But attempts to balance the humors in the body were futile when pitted against the wrath of Mother Nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach changing Season does its Poison bring.
\nRheums chill the Winter, Agues blast the Spring.
\nWet, Dry, Cold, Hot, at the appointed Hour,
\nAll act subservient to the Tyrant\u2019s Pow\u2019r.
\nAnd when obedient Nature knows his Will,
\nA Fly, a Grapestone, or a Hair can kill\u201d
\nby Titan Leeds [4]<\/p>\n

So while the land symbolized opportunity and freedom to one\u2019s own beliefs, it was also a threatening unknown\u2014unforgiving and tyrannical.<\/p>\n

It was with the coming of the Scientific Revolution<\/a> that people began to question their surroundings and go out of their way to interact with them. This revolution empowered many people to feel that they could be in control of something as forceful as the natural world. Electrical experiments in the 1730s by people such as C.W. Franklin reproduced natural phenomena such as lightning. As time passed, colonists became more familiar with the land and how to use it to not just live but thrive. The Linnaean method of plant classification was developed, indicating more regulation over the natural world.[5]<\/p>\n

Roderick Nash argues that people \u201cimaginatively transformed their \u2018untamed\u2019 surroundings out of fear,\u201d[6] which supports the argument that it is only when colonists felt dominant\u2014exerting and shaping the land as they saw fit\u2014were they able to go back to the view of America as a promised land as opposed to wasteland.<\/p>\n

In the late 18th and early 19th century, the American conception of wilderness as a dark, evil, and foreboding place transformed into a new idea of wilderness as a regenerative landscape, a romantic environment, a religious haven, and a site for outdoor sports.\u201d[7] People began to move to the outdoors for leisure. William Bartram<\/a> traveled up and down the East Coast and wrote about all the beautiful things he saw. Enchanted by the natural world, he wrote about the flowers that struck \u201con the imagination delight; and one can\u2019t look on it but with admiration\u201d[8] and the natural health in the \u201cNative air\u201d[9] of America.<\/p>\n

In the 19th century, the Civil War ravaged the East Coast. The reality of a Civil War and an institutional system of slavery certainly changed the land. Ted Steinberg writes that<\/p>\n

\u201cif nature shaped the evolution of slavery, the reverse proposition\u2014that the slave system had significant environmental implications\u2014seems even more persuasive. Land played a secondary role in a society in which so much wealth remained tied up in owning and trading slaves. It followed that little incentive existed for planters to maintain soil fertility, especially when an expanse of fertile land was always available further west. Thus the stage was set for the brutal cycle of clearing, ecological degradation, and eventual abandonment that characterized southern agriculture in the 60 years after 1780.\u201d[10]<\/p>\n

At the end of the Civil War, people were traumatized physically, mentally, and emotionally. The land was a literal battleground and graveyard from which people wanted to escape. With the passing of Louisiana Territory into US hands in 1803, Americans began to move west.[11] The West symbolized adventure and the promise of abundance and health. For others it was an escape from the rapidly crowding cities of the east coast. Few physicians journeyed west because a knowledgeable layman could provide all the medical attention necessary (as shown by Lewis and Clark\u2019s expedition in which all thirty-three people survived under the sole care of layman Merriweather Lewis).[12] The lack of trained medical authority allowed the continuation of the holistic approach to healing provided by a warmer climate, sunshine, hot springs, and fresh air offered by the West.<\/p>\n

In 1885, Charles Fletcher Lummins<\/a> walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles while recovering from Malaria.[13] After 143 days of walking, Lummis arrived in SoCal and became editor of a magazine named Land of Sunshine. The Magazine argued that California\u2019s sunny climate made people healthier and fostered intellectual and creative talent. Colorado also stood as a beacon of hope. Individuals placed their faith in the healing properties of wide open spaces; enticed by the promise of the Rocky Mountain air that was described as \u201cbuoyant and delicious,\u201d \u201cbracing and exhilarating,\u201d \u201cthe ethereal properties of champagne,\u201d with \u201cno subtle, malarious taint.\u201d George Ragan wrote in 1873 that he sought gold \u201cbut found a greater treasure\u2014good health.\u201d Union Pacific Railway said that the health of Denver had a value \u201cabove rubies\u201d and Mrs. W.H. Smith spoke of how thankful she was that \u201cthat there is a place in God\u2019s world, that I can breathe His air with comfort and ease.\u201d[14]<\/p>\n

While people found themselves healed by nature, technology and medicine continued to progress. The American sanatorium movement of the late 19th century shattered the consumptive\u2019s belief in the restorative powers of nature.[15] Cleanliness became an obsession and scientific developments such as germ theory brought on yet another shift in which the medical hospital was prioritized over the land.<\/p>\n

In typical fashion, in time we progress and in history we repeat. The natural landscape of the West is still romanticized<\/a> today as a place of escape, respite, and healing. The land shapes how we live. Picking apart the role of land itself brings into discussion economics, health, food, race, and gender. Analyzing the tangible marks humans have made on land facilitates a space where we are able to reach out and grasp the thoughts of the past. These imagined and physical landscapes were, and continue to be, a source of hope and healing. Having a connection to the land roots an individual with a sense of belonging. The physical, mental, and emotional impacts of the land itself are a result of the fact that the land has the power to provide as well as to deprive. Good health and overall well-being requires homage to the physical land that we are on. Colonists used the land as a means to better health. However, eventually it became a power dynamic in which the land was capitalized upon. In order for our land to be healing we must respect it and remember \u201cthat is not just a head-way but a heart-way and a gut-way to remember our relationship to the land. That we are part of the land community. Its story is in a very real sense our story. And people who forget the story of their relationship to the land are the people most vulnerable on this planet.\u201d[16]
\nFor Further Reading<\/p>\n

[1] Thomas Hallock. From the Fallen Tree: Frontier Narratives, Environmental Politics, and the Roots of a National Pastoral, 1749 \u2013 1826<\/em> (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press., 2005), 3.
\n[2] Elaine Breslaw. Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic: Health Care in Early America<\/em> (New York: New York University Press., 2012), 478.
\n[3] Conevery B. Valencius, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land<\/em> (New York: Basic Books., 2002), 53.
\n[4] Sara S. Gronim. Everyday Nature: Knowledge of the Natural World in Colonial New York.<\/em> (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press., 2007), 38.
\n[5] Ibid., 107.
\n[6] Hallock, 19.
\n[7] Peter M. Hopsicker. \u201cThe Adirondack Guide: The Wilderness Representative of Invasion and Invitation into an Imagined Community.\u201d New York History<\/em>, vol. 87 (2006), 345.
\n[8] William Bartram. William Bartram, The Search for Nature\u2019s Design: Selected Art, Letters, and Unpublished Writings.<\/em> Atlanta: University of Georgia Press (2010): pp. 68.
\n[9] Ibid., 167.
\n[10] Ted Steinberg. Down to Earth: Nature\u2019s Role in American History.<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press., 2002), 87.
\n[11] Wendy Richter. \u201cThe Impact of the Civil War on Hot Springs, Arkansas.\u201d The Arkansas Historical Quarterly<\/em>, vol. 43 (1984), pp. 125.
\n[12] Kent Mathewson. \u201cAlexander von Humboldt\u2019s Image and Influence in North American Geography, 1804-2004.\u201d Geographical Review<\/em>, vol. 96 (2006), pp. 419.
\n[13] Steinberg, 176.
\n[14] Gregg Mitman. \u201cGeographies of Hope: Mining the Frontiers of Health in Denver and Beyond, 1870-1965.\u201d Osiris<\/em>, vol. 19 (2004), pp. 95, 97.
\n[15] Ibid., 101.
\n[16] Jack Loeffler. Healing the West: Voices of Culture and Habitat.<\/em> (New Mexico: Museum of New Mexico Press., 2008), 21.<\/p>\n

Further Reading:<\/p>\n

Bridenbaugh, Carl. \u201cBaths and Watering Places of Colonial America.\u201d The William and Mary Quarterly<\/em> 3(1946): 151-181.
\nFeld, Steven and Keith H. Basso, ed., Senses of Place.<\/em> Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996.
\nHailey, Charlie. \u201cFrom Sleeping Porch to Sleeping Machine: Inverting Traditions of Fresh Air in North America.\u201d Traditional Dwellings and Settlements<\/em> 20 (2009): 27-44.
\nHowell, Andrew J., Raelyne L. Dopko, Holli-Anne Passmore, and Karen Buro. \u201cNature Connectedness: Associations with Well-Being and Mindfulness.\u201d Personality and Individual Differences<\/em> 51(2011): 166-171
\nPinkley-Call, Cora. \u201cStories about the Origin of Eureka Springs.\u201d The Arkansas Historical Quarterly<\/em> 5 (1946): 297-307.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joyce Bartlett is a fourth year psychology major at Grinnell College. With aspirations to pursue counseling and the healing arts, she hopes to spend the next couple of years being well in the company of loved ones and good food.   \u201cGoing back to the land.\u201d There is something sentimental about this. For land is… Read more Back to the Land<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscar.sites.grinnell.edu\/HistoryofMedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}