Panel Discussion - Finns in the United States

“Book Notes with Four Authors from Finns in the United States: A History of Settlement, Dissent, and Integration” This panel presentation will highlight chapters in the newly released book, Finns in the United States, published by Michigan State University Press. Authors will discuss their contribution to the book, and highlight key aspects of their work. Finns in the United States has been touted as a fresh and up-to-date analysis of Finnish Americans, an insightful volume that lays the groundwork for exploring this unique culture through a historical context, followed by an overview of the overall composition and settlement patterns of these newcomers.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF ANTHROPOGENIC, CLIMATE, AND POLICY INDUCED CHANGES OF PHOSPHORUS EXPORT IN THE UNITED STATES LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES WATERSHEDS

Anthropogenic activities have increased phosphorus (P) loading in tributaries to the Laurentian Great Lakes resulting in eutrophication in small bays to most notably, Lake Erie. Changes to surface water quality from P loading have resulted in billions of dollars in damage and threaten the health of the world’s largest freshwater resource. To understand the factors affecting P delivery with projected increasing urban lands and biofuels expansion, two spatially explicit models were coupled. The coupled models predict that the majority of the basin will experience a significant increase in urban area P sources while the agriculture intensity and forest sources of P will decrease. Changes in P loading across the basin will be highly variable spatially. Additionally, the impacts of climate change on high precipitation events across the Great Lakes were examined. Using historical regression relationships on phosphorus concentrations, key Great Lakes tributaries were found to have future changes including decreasing total loads and increases to high-flow loading events. The urbanized Cuyahoga watersheds exhibits the most vulnerability to these climate-induced changes with increases in total loading and storm loading , while the forested Au Sable watershed exhibits greater resilience. Finally, the monitoring network currently in place for sampling the amount of phosphorus entering the U.S. Great Lakes was examined with a focus on the challenges to monitoring. Based on these interviews, the research identified three issues that policy makers interested in maintaining an effective phosphorus monitoring network in the Great Lakes should consider: first, that the policy objectives driving different monitoring programs vary, which results in different patterns of sampling design and frequency; second, that these differences complicate efforts to encourage collaboration; and third, that methods of funding sampling programs vary from agency to agency, further complicating efforts to generate sufficient long-term data to improve our understanding of phosphorus into the Great Lakes. The dissertation combines these three areas of research to present the potential future impacts of P loading in the Great Lakes as anthropogenic activities, climate and monitoring changes. These manuscripts report new experimental data for future sources, loading and climate impacts on phosphorus.

HOG CHAINS AND MARK TWAINS: A STUDY OF LABOR HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND INDUSTRIAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE STEAMBOAT ERA OF THE MONONGAHELA VALLEY 1811-1950

This dissertation examines a unique working class in the United States, the men and women who worked on the steamboats from the Industrial Revolution until the demise of steam-powered boats in the mid-20th century. The steamboat was the beginning of a technological system that was developed in America and used in such great numbers that it made the rapid population of the Trans-Appalachian West possible. The steamboat was forever romanticized by images of the antebellum South or the quick wit of Samuel Clemens and his sentimental book, Life on the Mississippi. The imagination swirls with thoughts of boats, bleach white, slowly churning the calm waters of some Spanish moss covered river. The reality of the boats and the experience of those who worked on them has been lost in this nostalgic vision. This research details the history of the western steamboat in the Monongahela Valley, the birthplace of the commercial steamboat industry. The first part of this dissertation examines the literature of authors in the field of labor history and Industrial Archaeology to place this work into the larger context of published literature. The second builds a framework for understanding the various eras that the steamboat went through both in terms of technological change, but also the change the workers experienced as their identity as a working class was being shaped. The third part details the excavations of two steamboat captains houses, those of Captain James Gormley and Captain Michael A. Cox. Both men represented a time in which the steamboat was in an era of transition. Excavations at their homes yield clues to their class status and how integrated they were in the local community. The fourth part of this study documents the oral histories of steamboat workers, both men and women, and their experience on the boats and on the river. Their rapidly declining population of those who lived and worked on the boats gives urgency for their lives to be documented. Finally, this study concludes with a synthesis of how worker identity solidified in the face of technological, socio-economic, and ideological change especially during their push for unionization and the introduction of the diesel towboat.