Meinig in the 21st Century

D. W. Meinig wrote his perspectives on geography long before National and State Standards were conceived. Despite the fact that Meinig did not write his text to fit the standards, his work complies with those eighteen National Standards and one New York State Standard. In his major work, The Shaping of America, Meinig shows how geography influenced life, settlement, political organization, phases in the geographic makeup of the United States, and unification of a nation by the looking at geography in terms of the relations of people and place. By understanding the elements of Meinig’s text one can understand the hierarchy of themes of geography in that context.

Meinig’s work fulfils the requirements of New York State Standard 3. Standard 3 highlights the earth in spatial terms, places and regions, physical settings, human systems, environment and society, and the use of geography. Standard 3 also highlights the educational use of applying geographic theories and understanding those theories.

Meinig starts off discussing human migration patterns in the United States. Meinig states that Europeans had a hard time growing their crops in the new world because of differences in climate; the United States includes traces of tropical and European weather (Meinig, 1988). Due to the fact that England and Jamestown had similar latitude positions, English settlers assumed that English crops grow easily in the new world. Settlers did not factor in wind currents, geographic factors that would influence weather like mountains, lakes, and location of land in relation to sea level.

One could use the story of Jamestown Virginia and say that geographical differences was partly responsible for the failure of European farming in the new world. Looking at the Jamestown disaster of mass starvation, and then the adaptations the Europeans made shows how a people can in fact change to their geographic conditions. Jamestown adapted and started growing native crops of the colony such as beans, squash, corn and food storage and preservation (Meinig, 1988).

Jamestown was supposed to be a English colony that would produce wine, mulberry trees for silk but could not because of the swampy and unfavorable conditions for the initial goals of settlers (Davidson & Lytle, 2005). Jamestown is a great educational example of geography influencing the living pattern of people when colonial officials had to enact a law to require colonist to grow corn (Davidson & Lytle, 2005). Corn is a very easy crop to grow and required only forty eight hours work yet colonist were distracted by tobacco (Davidson & Lytle, 2005). The whole colony adopted the crop as their primary source of income and way of life because it required so much attention during the growing process; so much tobacco was grown that people used every available piece of land(Davidson & Lytle, 2005).

Standard 3 states that students should have an understanding of how culture develops culturally, politically, and socially due to the geography of the region. The bays and harbors of the Atlantic seaboard cultivated a series of unique clusters of colonies and groups of people whose political organizations and ties with their mother country were different than one another. These bay colonies were intended as outpost for British imperialism; however, each developed their own economies and governments. Even though colonies started out as models of European society, a divergence did occur in the Atlantic areas of settlement. These differences and changes did not occur because of traditional geographic distance which is so easy to understand. Standard 3 indicates that a culture develops because of the geographic region. The colonies outside the immediate domain of the mother country diverged in culture and political systems from Europe because of separation and isolation, not from distance. Eventually the populations of these Atlantic ports were made up of U.S. born citizens. It cannot be denied that the results of isolation and letting a population grow, that was becoming native to the U. S. region played a huge role in the separateness of the American colonies and the British. The geography of the southern part of the United States, South of the Carolinas, cultivated a planter’s society. Understanding what huge role geography played in the development of a new culture is vital in fulfilling New York State Standard 3.

Meinig’s text provides detailed informational maps and graphs vital to any geographic study. The second element of New York State Standard 3 is analyzing geographic information. The maps and charts provided in this text could very easily be lifted and used in the classroom. The British Imperial Positions map on page 309 of Meinig’s text is a chart that shows the clusters of British ports on the Atlantic seaboard (1988). One can analyze this geographic information about the availability of waterways and deep ports, which not every continent has, and inquire about the strength of British imperialism in the colonies. By looking at this map one can also see the amount of small colonies of people who were all going through a separation isolation period from the British. At first glance the map indicates that the British had a lot of control in the new world and that there influence was huge, but after remembering divergence, you can see how many groups of people were becoming less European. Meinig, however, does not completely fulfill all of New York State Standard 3 because of the lack of more technical geographic maps. The maps and charts in Meinig offer insight into the political/social/economic conditions and changes associated with geography. Meinig does not provide non political maps or charts. To fulfill the second part of the standard Meinig would to have had charts that compared the temperatures of European mother countries to their new world colonies. There are not any maps highlighting mountain ranges for a person to apply geographic skills of gathering information to research. The maps in Meinig are invaluable but fail to meet the criteria for the second part of New York State Standard 3. The maps in Meinig’s text are rich with human geography and highlight the concepts of divergence, center/periphery model, and distance decay vs. incremental decreases in culture.

Meinig’s work fulfils many of the National Geography Standards and highlights essential themes of geography. The most basic theme, location is made perfectly clear throughout Meinig with the various maps and visual representations of the colonies and where they were. On page 244 of The Shaping of America, the first areas to be colonized are shown very clearly (Meinig, 1988). When looking at this map one would be able to understand that the location of New England is significantly farther North than Pennsylvania or the Bahamas or Louisiana. Place is also another theme well defined in Meinig’s text. The description of the Proclamation Line separating the settlers from Indian Territory is one example (Meinig, 1988). The main boundaries of the Line were the Allegany Mountains and other natural barriers such as rivers and streams (Meinig, 1988). The description of the Proclamation Line fulfils National Standard 2, requiring a person to mentally picture geographic information.
The concept of Human/Environment Interaction is described in Meinig when the claiming of large tracts of land started. The huge amount of land for the taking from the Native Americans after the North West Ordinance of 1787 caused changes in law and practices (Meinig, 1988). National Standard 14 is addressed because the selling and claiming of land modified the physical environment. Vast tracts of land that may have been forest were now being cut to become farms and cleared for wagon trails. By changing the land to fit the needs of the people in the 18th century, the country was becoming more settled and expanding changing the whole geography of the new nation dramatically.

The theme of movement is also prevalent in Meinig’s text. As the eastern part of the country (original colonies) became more occupied and populated, people started to move westward. People themselves were able to move because of their ability to change the geography by building bridges, canals, road (Meinig, 1988). People could now move more quickly over longer distances which, starting to unify and make the country more assessable. National Standard 3 focuses on knowing how to analyze how and why people move on the Earth’s surface. By understanding the technology that people had access to in changing the geography, one would have a better understanding of how they could migrate. National Standard 9 also highlights knowing the characteristics of migration. The key characteristics of movement in the United States were the ability of movement through technology, needs, and desires.

The divergence of the colonies in America resulted in the highest level of geographic themes; regions. The American colonies developed as a region and changed from their mother country and formed a new society. The American colonies became their own region even though many of them remained very British in many ways. Starting in Massachusetts the American colonies were on the path to becoming changed forever when the colony proposed a congress of delegates from each colony to oppose the Stamp Act (Meinig, 1988). The history of the colonies shows that there was no unity between them; rather, they were shared the similarity of having London being their economic home base. It is also true that after independence was declared there was rivalry and competition between the colonies. Just because the Declaration of Impedance called for free and independent states who joined together for a common interest, it does not mean they were unified. The United States even had a problem with federalism which is the forming of one entity (unity) while preserving the components that form the entity (the states). The United States in effect has formed a region that is still changing. It is hard to state a date that defined the United States as one nation; complete, and simple. The date of complete unity was not 1776, and the country was still was not completely united in 1800 (Meinig, 1988). Meinig concludes that the United States is a unified region because of the will of the people but remains to be a system of “polarities and paradoxes” which functions with independent states under a central authority (Meinig, 1988, p. 414). This conflict continues today and which makes the United States a paradox; independent and unified at the same time.

A model I will use in my classroom is to compare the theory of distance decay to the incremental process. The theory of decay says that distance causes the break in a colony from its mother country. The incremental process indicates that the changes a colony goes through and the additions made to the colony through people, culture, geography, and other factors causes it to become different, not distance from its mother country. I think it is very easy to think in terms of distance causing a breakdown in relations between a colony and its mother country. The incremental process explains that the distance of a colony is not as important as the changes the colony undergoes due to new circumstances, new people, and integration of new culture.

Meinig says the incremental process for the British colonies in America started at back in the England when certain groups of people decided to leave for the new world (1988). Factors such as selection of regions by migrants, additions to the culture by non-Europeans, adaptations to America, migration into the “back country” and the existence of Indian Territory all contributed to the incremental changes that took place in the American colonies (1988). These incremental changes resulted in a different social structure, different type of property ownership, voting rights, and an absence of a aristocracy (Meinig, 1998). I would love to take a colony in America and do an in-depth study of what happened to that particular colony in a classroom with American history students. The study would show what caused the colony to change and become a different culture instead of just saying that the colony became independent in the Revolution because they were too far away from the British. I would be a great project to break each factor down and examine the processes.

Meinig’s text The Shaping of America fulfils the New York State standard on geography, as well as the National Standards on geography. When going through the text Meinig naturally brings the reader up the hierarchy of geography themes explaining the geographical changes, social changes, and political changes that took place in the United States. It is true that the geography must be considered in any study of a country or any political, economic or social change.