WEBVTT - Ep. 012 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:07.840 This is the Meat Eater podcast. We're recording in in 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:13.680 uh Seattle, Washington, not far from my house, in a 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:18.280 in a in a rental house that the T shirt magnate, uh, 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.919 Janice Telis rented for a shoot. Um you got do 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:24.119 you guys? Have? Have you ever bought one of the 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:29.160 Honest's T shirts? I have not. That's Randall our guests, 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:34.640 Randall Williams Williams Williams admitting to having not bought one 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:39.519 of Janice's Hunt Eat shirts. Andy, I'm interested in the 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:45.160 T shirts for sale. I just made a sale for you, honest. 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:51.280 That's that's my very old Andy. How long we've been friends? Uh, 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.480 probably goes back to mid nineties. Maybe we've been friends 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.640 almost half the time that I've been alive. Just about 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:06.480 dead nuts half the time I've been alive. Um, Andy, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.399 was like you were because you were still becoming one, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.200 but you were the first chef I ever actually met 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.600 besides like a dude who cooks fried food in the bar. Yeah. 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.360 Actually when we when training to be a chef. When 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.039 our path across, Yeah, I was just starting culinary school. Yeah, 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.440 that's probably nineties six right there? Where was that faris 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.360 day in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So just down the road 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.920 from Ferres. Yeah, I was at g V. I moved, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.560 I went to like I graduated from the third college 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.320 that I enrolled in. But you were at the culinary 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.560 arts program. Yeah. I was at Grand Valley for a 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.280 little bit and then switched gears and ended up at 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:50.440 the culinary program right there in downtown Grand Rapids. And 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.640 that was a fun time. We did the first meal 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.880 thing we ever did, besides cooking steel head or something, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.480 was when we cooked we had a pig with a 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:07.280 road killed deer. We did, and we sold the I 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.000 believe we sold the road killed deer inside of a 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:15.600 pig and had a party, big old party, wild, big pig, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.520 small deer. What. No. We were coming back Me and 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.519 my brother Matt were coming back from fishing into PM, 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.120 remember the PM from Michigan. We're coming back from fishing salmon. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.440 Must have been late summer, coming back from fishing salm 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.080 On the PM. Guy in front of us hit a 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.920 deer with his car. He didn't want it. We called 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.320 the cops. Cops gave us no. We never even got 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.359 I could. I'm sure the statute limitations is worn out 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.520 by now. Did not get a permit for the deer, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.720 drove the deer from Baldwin down to your Grand Rapids 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:48.680 and hung it in a garage at a house we 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:53.799 were renting. And this was a full on flophouse. I mean, 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:55.240 none of the dudes that lived in that house were 0:02:55.280 --> 0:03:00.160 on that lease. Probably. Well. A funny side note about 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:05.760 that is being Mark Schmidt. We're up in that same 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.400 neck of the woods the same time you guys were, 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.320 and we were coming home the day the morning after 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.720 that and saw that gut pile on the side of 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.520 the road and made mention of it, and then got 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.720 all the way back to our house, opened the garage 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:25.519 door and there was that darranging. We pieced it together. Um, 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.799 that's a great recipe to put a deer cut up 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.079 in a pig. And I think we sold it with 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.400 bangling wire. It was twenty years ago though. Anyhow, that's 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:41.800 not where you're top about. So Joannice, who tells uh 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:46.120 of of of plug your T shirts? Yanny Janna is 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:51.600 on the conversation, Yanayana, get so little, so little out 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.640 of this. Let it let's talk. He's dumb bunch t shirts. No, 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.080 this has really helped our T shirt business. And by 0:03:58.080 --> 0:03:59.920 the time you guys listen to this, we're gonna have 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:04.240 of Texas T shirts and Montana T shirts. So Yanni 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.040 makes the shirts hunt to Eat and um, he had 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.960 an original one that wasn't state specific, then in Colorado 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:18.200 because that's his roots are in Colorado. Then now you're 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:24.480 doing Texas. It's got a big fence on it. It's 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.679 got an a fence in a corn feeder. No, I'm joking, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.360 it's made to look like the Texas flag, Texas license plate. 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.880 He's coming out with Montana doing Alaska. We've been trying 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:40.320 talking into do in Jersey. She hasn't gotten around to yet. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.240 So yeah, Hunty dot com go by one of Yanni's teachers. 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:48.000 The reason we're here to talk though, Randall Williams. Now, 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.760 when I was in I went after regular college, I 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.640 went to graduate school. When I was in graduate school, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.720 I took a class with a with an environmental historian 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.560 by the name of Dan Flores. And um, if everyone 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.120 read great history stuff, go check out Dan's books. But 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:07.960 Dan writes a lot of I mean some of his 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.440 most influence correct me if I'm wrong, but thinks one 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.200 of the most cited, like when an academic does a paper. 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.560 One way to gauge like writes an article, they'll call 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.560 it the paper right now'll publish it. A way to 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.160 gauge a paper success is how many times it's cited, right, right, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:29.640 And his thing Bison ecology, Bison diplomacy. Yeah, this cited 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.200 and anthologized, and it's just like that has been like 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.599 a hugely successful paper, right Yeah. Now that's from the 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.280 Journal of American History, which is a really prestigious journal, 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.880 and I think that was from maybe and it's been 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:46.640 reproduced in countless anthologies. Yeah, And in it, Dan Floores 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:55.800 argues quite beautifully that the planes Indians never had never 0:05:55.800 --> 0:06:00.919 reached equilibrium with the bison herds, and that had correct 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:02.200 me if I'm wrong, I'm sure you know it, say 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.120 better Id Randall, And and he argues, had you just 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:11.360 introduced the firearm and the horse, you'd have had eventually 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:16.239 had the same outcome. Yeah. I mean, the larger argument 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.159 is um essentially that there are so many variables that 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.960 go into determining what the what the bison population of 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.520 the planes would be that you can't simply blame this 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.960 mass extinction on market hunters. At the end of the 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:34.920 nineteenth century, because that's always been what most historians have 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.359 have done, is to blame white market hunters, the industrial 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.480 hide hunt for the extinction of or the near extinction 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.880 of the bison. And so Dan is arguing that they're 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:49.440 larger um climactic patterns, periods of drought on the planes 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:54.599 that uh, you know affect with bison populations. Native hunters 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.279 they had, you know, they're their long standing traditions and 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:03.560 practices changed wholesale with the introduction of the horse and 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.400 the firearm and so probably yeah, the opening of markets, um. 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.000 And Indians participated in in the market hunting as well. Um. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.640 And So essentially what his article does is it takes 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.400 this story that had really been rendered into something of 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.720 morality play, um and and makes it much more complex 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:26.000 and I think ultimately much more interesting. UM. So yeah, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.040 that's that's sort of the gist of the bison piece. Yeah. 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:30.720 I don't want to dwell on that. I'm just getting 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:38.280 to dance. But the reason, like I wrote about that 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.840 animal from not from an academic standpoint, but more from 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:45.240 a popular standpoint. Um. But I became very like I 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.360 tried to become versed in these various arguments. I think 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.840 that a thing about like why the hide hunter thing 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.679 was so dramatic as it was so complete and final 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.239 that even though those guys were coming in and whittling 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.320 away at was just a fraction of the animals. The 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:08.080 fashionable number for for bison in the US, the fashionable 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.120 number buffalo bison. It's the same damn thing. The fashionable 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.560 number used to be like sixty million. And that came 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:19.480 from some really strange calculations by a guy named earned A. Seaton. Right, 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.280 he like, read about a big herd that Colonel Dodge 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.240 who's who Dodges gave the name dot to Dodge City. 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.040 Colonel Dodgers, like, I saw a big gass, heard of buffalo. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.319 It took this may day in the past. It was 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.680 this many miles wide. So Seaton went and said, Wow, 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.520 there must have been x number and that herd. He's like, 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:41.400 there must have been I don't know what whatever million 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.520 animals and that heard and they lived here, and so 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.520 there's probably like six or seven or eight other areas 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.280 that are that big, and so each of those areas 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.520 has that many, and that became how you always heard 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.800 that there was sixty million these animals at the time 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:03.720 of European colonization. Now the fashionable figure is you see 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.839 often maybe it's changed because it's been a few years 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.319 since I've been in the game, the fashionable figure million, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.840 you know. But the thing that's weird about it as 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.080 you get where by the time the hide hunters, like 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.840 by the time euro American hide hunters came on the 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.439 scene and we're shooting them to put on rail cars, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.880 to send the hides on rail cars to the East 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.960 to have them tanned, there were way fewer. You know, 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.120 it was already a vulnerable population because by the end 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.400 of the Civil War that number again this is debatable, 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:40.400 but but a reasonable gas or a reasonable theory would 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.480 be by the end of the Civil War you had 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.360 maybe fifteen million, maybe ten millions. So they've already been 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:50.000 whacked down by a half two thirds, and you wind 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.959 up having these pretty big, substantial herds left a couple 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:55.439 you know, you have these eight herds of like a 0:09:55.520 --> 0:10:00.720 couple million, a million, and so to our eyes today, 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:05.360 it would seem like unfathomable amounts of animals in the 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.880 herd and the high owners of rolling and they would 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:13.280 kill thousands, you know. So it would be like right now, 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:18.240 we don't have nearly as many. Uh, take your pick, 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.000 I don't name something naming equivalent. We don't have nearly 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.200 as many what as we did at the time of 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:28.560 European contact. Big horn sheet? Okay, you so if a 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.560 bunch of guys went out right now and made did 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.400 their best to shoot every big horn sheet and they 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.840 shot them pretty much all, would you later say, you 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.000 know what happened to the big horn sheep? These one 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.360 assholes in two thousand fifteen shot them all, and then 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.320 someone else would be like, oh no, because they were 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.520 way down from all these other factors have been planning 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.480 out for the last two hundred years, So it wasn't 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:52.640 really that much of a sin because there they were 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.079 already missing from nine of their range from the from 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.959 nd when these dudes in two thousand fifteen went and 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.760 shot the rest, does that make sin less or more so? 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.200 The Highlanders shot a lot of ship. Maybe they didn't 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.520 shoot thirty two million, but they mopped up what was 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.000 left of like some big herds at shirt were a 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.640 fraction of the original, but it's still kind of like catastrophic. Yeah, 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:19.319 and and Dan's article basically um highlights a whole host 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.280 of factors that sort of set the stage for hide 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.480 hunters to come in and just deliver the death blow. Right, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.280 And so that's I think it was a pretty pretty 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.560 significant intervention, and um sort of a controversial one too, 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.240 because it it disrupts um. You know, a lot of 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.839 people like to make the past into simple morality place. 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.160 And the bison was always this example of uh, just 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.800 expl naked exploitation, breed Native Americans used every part of 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:52.720 the animal right, never wasted anything, right, complete sanctimonious, you know. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.560 And then evil guys came into Star of the Indians. Yeah, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.360 and and to and ands just it's just I'm sorry, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.040 it's just not true, right, And but and to acknowledge 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:06.280 all these other factors that led to this catastrophe isn't 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.120 to absolve hide hunters of any blame, right, it's not 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.840 uneducated guys were uneducated, guys were years old. Yeah. And 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.080 even though I would have been a hide hunter, like, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.440 there's no way the same way Like when I was 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.839 in my early twenties, I moved out to Mountainics, I 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.439 wanted to hunting fish, remove any aspect of of any 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.360 any idea about history and the idea about education, and 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.080 always grew up on a farm in Michigan with no phone, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.280 no internet, no nothing. Turned twenty years old. You can 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.520 make money hunting buffalo. You go out on buffalo. You 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.680 have no idea what you're engaged in, right, you might 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.199 get it on some like. It wasn't like an evil thing. 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:49.960 This is the last thing I say about it. But 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.760 later Horn today, who collected specimens for the Smithsonian. Later 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.400 he went to Miles City trying to find he wanted 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.200 to shoot a cup buffalo for the Smiths, and they 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.880 knew they were going to be gone the Museum Natural History, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.199 Sorry was I can remember which one was? Anyways, someone 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.720 they wanted some collections, They wanted some pristine mounts before 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.600 the animals were completely gone. He went out to Miles City. 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.280 It was in the e in late eight eighties, I think, 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.440 And he commented that in Miles City, the ranchers around 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:27.080 there mostly came to that area because they were high 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.000 and hunters, and they stuck around because they were convinced, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:31.960 after they had shot them all that there must be 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.520 more somewhere, and they're just gonna hang tight until they 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.120 show up. And then a few years went by and 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.760 they all got into cattle ranching. They didn't even know 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.800 what they had done. There was rumors about a bunch 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.480 of Canada millions would come from Canada. They weren't like, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.679 we got them all, good job boys. I mean, it's 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.240 just the scale of that, that destruction is sort of 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.160 unimaginable to us today. But and so how could we 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.960 even expect any of these guys running around UH to 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.199 have any idea what they're going? I bet you. Illiteracy? 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.720 Ill literacy and then another thing like it's a slam. 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:11.520 Illiteracy was probably rampant among the high honors, and there 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.600 was probably very little education among the high honors. Oh 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:20.720 I'm sure yeah they were. If you factory and where 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.160 those guys are mostly from and where they wound up, 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.160 and you do some kind of calculation you had about 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.880 communication and stuff, it would be like if you sent 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:37.080 kids from here from current day rural America to Kazakhstan 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.800 and told him that shoot that thing and we will 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.720 pay you to shoot it, yeah, I mean, and then 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.400 to them be like, dude, you didn't realize that the 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:52.120 populations in Kazakhstan. It's like it would mean nothing to him. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.960 I mean the h and so it was a lucrative business. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.960 You know, you could make a lot of money just 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.360 running around rolling over bison, skinning them out higher skinners 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.720 three or four five bucks apiece, throw them, throw them 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.000 on a train. And that's and then and then even still, 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.320 it's not as if they're just doing this um in 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.280 a vacuum. Right. The leather from these hides are going 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.520 onto factory belts in Chicago and New York. It's fueling 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:24.720 the industrial revolution um to some degree. So uh yeah, 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.200 I mean it's they're they're part of their their cogs 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:31.360 in a much larger process. And and to place you know, 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.560 some sort of burden of guilt on them is uh, 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.440 I don't know, it's it's not a very intellectually serious exercise. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.840 So they were filthy. They were filthy. They were filthy. No, 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.560 but I only bring up Dan the historian Dan Flores, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:50.000 because Dan Floors uh contacted me and said that I 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:56.200 should speak to you about your dissertation, which I'm gonna 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:01.240 have you explained. But first, what is explain for the listeners? 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.800 Like what is the dissertation? Do you just finished your PhD? 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.280 I did, Yeah, it just has one of those he says. 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.920 He says he says he has two and one of 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:14.840 them stands for pretty huge. Uh huh um. Filling the blank, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.120 but okay, explain what the dissertation is, like, how how 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.440 that how that whole thing plays out. Yeah, so the 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:28.600 dissertation is the final step on the road two a 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.880 doctoral degree. Um. And so you did your you did 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.480 your doctoral work under Dan Flores. Yeah, so Dan was 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.400 my Dan was my doctoral advisor, UM. And I studied 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.240 history at the University of Montana environmental history. Um. And 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.240 explain that real quick. Environmental history. Yeah, it's like in 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:50.200 a nutshell. Yeah. Environmental historians are interested in questions, uh, 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.720 pertaining to how humans in the past have interacted with 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.600 the environment and how human behavior has shaped the environment 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.720 and also in turn, how the environment has shaped human 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.600 behave of heer. Um. And so it's a pretty it's 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.400 a relatively recent, uh sub field, and it really came 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.000 about in the seventies. Dan was one of the I mean, 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.399 there have always been intellectuals concerned with these questions, but 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.600 in terms of sort of a professional sub field within history, UM, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.200 environmental history came about, uh really in the seventies, as 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:28.080 environmental concern became a large part of American Life. And yeah, 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.720 Cronan is a he's got a couple of classic works. Um, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:33.680 who's the guy that did the thing about the death 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:38.840 of the frontier? Um? Like, who wrote the thing declaring 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.680 the frontier was dead? In whatever your turn turn Yeah. 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.280 But Turner wasn't an environmental historian. No, No, Turner. Turner 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.280 is a Western historian. Frederick Jackson Turnderi Jackson Turner. Yeah. Yeah. 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.520 Turner had this idea that he would look at the 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.520 census data, right, right, and one day found out that 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.920 on the census report things were in the US were 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:03.240 so lowly or so unpopulated that they would be called 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.119 the frontier. And then one day a census came in 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.600 and they realized there is no frontier anymore, right, And 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.600 he had this and then was it Cronin that then 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:15.760 kind of interpreted that later? Well, yeah, I mean almost 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.719 all of Western history that said is is sort of 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:24.000 produced in conversation with Turner. Um. And yeah, I mean 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.800 the history of the American West. And and there's this 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.800 long standing debate about whether the West is a process 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.879 or a place, um. And so Turner is really arguing 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:38.200 that the Western, the West is a process, right, It's 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.320 a process of frontier settlement. It's a process of sort 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:46.000 of rendering wilderness into civilization. And that's that's sort of 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.399 Turner's thesis. And he's he's writing at the turn of 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:54.159 the twentieth century, UM, and he's he's looking at this 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.800 census date and saying, well, once we as Americans run 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.280 out of uh trees to cut down or or sort 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:06.480 of bison to shoot, right, um, native people's to fight, Um, 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:10.800 what's what effect is that going to have on uh, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.040 the American people? Because he is really attributing a lot 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.800 of the distinctive characteristics of American civilization to this process 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.640 of of western or of of sort of frontier settlement. Um. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.640 And so he's tracing um, you know, the the democrat 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.520 the origins of America and of America's democratic political culture 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:37.520 to all of this availa quote unquote available land right um. 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.160 And so Western historians of the American West, or Western 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.840 historians sort of interchangeable there um throughout the twentieth century 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.000 have been trying to write because Turner was so influential, UM, 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.760 Western historians have been wrestling with this question of um, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.399 is the West a process? Is it a place? I 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.000 think environmental historians would argue that the West is a 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.600 place and that it's defined by um aridity. Uh, there 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.919 are certain you know, certain key characteristics, environmental characteristics, and 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.800 also characteristics related to its political organization of the federal 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.960 government is really uh inescapable in the West, whereas in 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.879 the East, a lot of issues of governance are resolved 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.919 at the municipal or a state level. Whereas you know, 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.320 you look at uh landownership rates and you can live 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:28.520 in a federally owned land. Yeah. So so this is 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.320 you know, not to get into the the minutia of 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.120 the historiography in Western history, but basically there's this long 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.560 standing debate place process. How do we define the West? 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.640 If you say that you're interested in the American West 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.679 and that's what you study, how do you define that, um, 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.080 is Alaska part of the West? Is Hawaii part of 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:53.679 the West? Yes? No, m all right, Well it's it's 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:55.879 you know, this is this is what academics do. Is 0:20:56.000 --> 0:21:01.199 you just come up with inventive questions to all these yes. No, 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:06.440 well yeah, um, I just got back from Hawaii. I 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:07.680 don't want to get into that, but I'd love to 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:09.159 hear someone tell me what would tell me you like 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.320 the pros and cons of calling at the West. So 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.240 now you did your dissertation, which is like your final, 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.480 the final, Like it's it's the final I want to take. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:18.679 I want to go way back for people who have 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.080 who haven't dabbled around in college that much like when 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.520 you go to college, you go to regular college four 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.560 years that you probably had some kind of graduate degree 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.520 which took you two or three years. Well, I went 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:33.600 straight from so I did my undergraduate degree, uh in Chicago, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.280 and then I came out to the University of Montana. 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.840 I was I was admitted directly into the doctoral program. 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.239 And now the years that take five years, And how 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:42.880 many years have you just been working on what would 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.400 become your dissertation the whole time, the whole time. Yeah, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.200 I sort of began. I mean it's evolved over time, 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.879 but it began in that first semester of graduate school. 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.480 So like it turned into a five year project. Yeah, essentially, 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.960 So I did two years of course work, UM seminars, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.720 this and that, and then UM the next step is 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.080 your comprehensive exam. So you come up with a list 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.679 of the essential books and in a number of fields. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.760 So I did four fields Um, and you each of 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.359 those lists about a hundred books, so you you read, 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:15.600 you know, I read about four hundred books and sit 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.560 down and have a conversation with your advisors and they 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.639 you know, or you'll hear the more or less. Yeah, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:26.240 skim to quite a few of them. But read strategically. 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:30.760 So kids, I don't, man, that ship goes down the kids, man, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.520 but I have to read, Like I don't want to 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.080 start talking about that. I love them, I love them. Yeah, 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:38.840 but the first thing that goal is the ability to 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.679 read books. Yeah, I mean, that's that's. Uh. There's not 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:46.359 a whole lot of glamour to graduate school or you know, 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:50.679 graduate studies and the humanities. But the the the undeniable 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.320 luxury of it all is that, you know, people expect 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.639 you to read a lot, and uh if that's something 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.200 that that you like doing, which is what drawing, what 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.439 drew me to it. Um, you're expected to read a 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:03.639 lot and you have that time available. So when I 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.200 went to grad, all we did was read many Yeah. 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.640 So yeah, the amount of work you had to do 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.440 for that, especially I was in fine arts like writing. 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:16.080 It's like basically basically like you could have summed up 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:18.919 by saying discore, read for two years and and then 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.080 if you can, if you got time, write something. Yeah. 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.439 So that's what yeah, I mean, we I did reading. 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:25.679 You know, the first two years are reading seminars and 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.440 writing seminars. So in reading seminar you might read ten 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:31.320 books a term, and then in writing seminar you're expected 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:35.160 to produce an article length paper um. And then after 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.000 two years of that you sort of sent off to 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:43.280 prepare for your exams and essentially master these fields um. 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:46.640 And then once you pass your exams, then you move 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:50.520 on to the dissertation phase where you're actually um right. 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:53.200 And what a dissertation is is it's a book length 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:57.720 piece of writing that is expected or or must make 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:03.359 an original contribution to uh, the literature. So you have 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:07.400