2 10 34 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/7375efb95df70f7b01747efc111e33ce.jpg c4697d493008abf101443b5bbef76916 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource George Simons (1834-1917) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/6d670239a7f33476669c6956f5622e67.jpg 636f0f32972acfcb06dcc9ed4355569e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mormon Trail. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hales, J. Rulon Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived David Rumsey Map Collection https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~290740~90062336:Mormon-Trail-?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=w4s:/what%2FPictorial%2Bmap;q:mormon%20trail;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=1&trs=2# https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/347b34f5998affa5d69af9fd4dab42e7.png 3b8e80ca774aea24a509c624a4142ef9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Detail (Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs) Subject The topic of the resource Handcarts depicted in Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs, by George Simons Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conquering Time and Space Subject The topic of the resource <div>Industrial Revolutions <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4704/39667361775_2e3264c4bf_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> <a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~24266~880086:-Birdseye-view-Great-Plains-#" title="Bird Eye View - Rumsey" target="_blank">Detail(Birdseye view Great Plains)Knight, Leonard & Co.,Engravers and Printers, Chicago. (1890) David Rumsey.com </a></div> Description An account of the resource Industrial revolutions fundamentally transformed the world’s social and economic order. Beginning in Great Britain in the eighteenth century, European empires expanded industrialization into a global phenomenon that created spectacular wealth and unprecedent power for western countries, but also led to new social conflict and increased the gap between rich and poor. Industrialization also led to profound changes in the global environment. Advances in transportation and telecommunications expanded the reach of industrial powers. The railroad and the telegraph allowed people to tap distant natural resources more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Contemporaries praised this “annihilation of time and space” and Omaha was central to this story. The first transcontinental telegraph began in Omaha and was completed in 1861. In 1863, the Union Pacific chose Omaha as the eastern terminus for the transcontinental railroad. By 1867, the United States had built the world’s largest railroad network, business leaders communicated from coast to coast, and Omaha stood at the center. As railroads and the telegraph shrank time and space, cities expanded. Streetcars promoted urban growth and the rise of the first suburbs. The objects in this section show rail and the telegraph reshaped environments during this era of industrialization. As you move through this section of the exhibit, consider how transportation and telecommunication connects Omaha to the wider world and to global environments today. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mormon Camp Meeting Painting Subject The topic of the resource In the early nineteenth century, people had to travel by foot or wagon to get to new places. During this time, Omaha and Council Bluffs became a settlement for pioneers traveling west. This painting illustrates one of these settlements on the Mormon Trail called the Winter Quarters. Likely painted between 1834-1917 by George Simons, it connects Omaha to migration. Trails have often been the pathway for the movement of people around the world. Migration redistributes both people and resources. It can bring new people and goods that can be helpful to local economies. Human mobility often introduces harmful new plants and animals to an area as well and migration contributes to global carbon emissions. This painting shows how important trails are to cities like Omaha. Even so, we shouldn't forget that how they create ecosystem changes that are harmful to the Anthropocene. Description An account of the resource When the word ‘migration’ comes to mind, one may think of animals traveling south for winter or people relocating to distant new lands, seeking refuge or opportunity. However, migration involves more than just the movement of people or animals. Its effects extend deeper, leaving an impact on the environment itself. The Mormon Trail is one such example of human migration that left a stark impact on the land. The trail, beginning in Nauvoo, Illinois, was the route people of the Mormon religion used to get to Salt Lake, Utah while fleeing religious persecution. From 1846 to 1868, over 15,000 Mormon migrants trekked across the 1,300 mile-long trail. The painting “Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs” by artist George Simons, depicts a stop along this trail and is representative of the social as well as environmental significance of this movement. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/237">Figure I</a>) The movement on the Mormon Trail is not unique: migration is omnipresent in human history and has been a constant in the human story. Migration contributes to the settlement of new countries and the exploration of foreign lands. This painting reminds viewers that the Anthropocene is more than a story of settlement, urbanization, and agriculture. The Mormon Trail represents all human migration and the effects it has on the global environment. Migration is not inherently good or bad on its own; however, the methods used for migration have had and continue to contribute negatively to the Anthropocene. Movement is an unusual object of environmental historical analysis, but images offer unique evidence of its significance. This painting depicts the Winter Quarters settlement of the Mormon Trail, which later became the cities Omaha and Council Bluffs. The settlement is split into two sections, divided by a stream or narrow river. Tents and covered wagons are depicted on the right side of the painting and are presumably the primary shelters used at this settlement. These dwellings are simple and representative of the few resources migrants have had. Animals are also depicted, often alongside the wagons they pull. These horses were vital for movement on the trail and without them the journey would have been longer and more arduous. Near some of the horses, are handcarts. While not as effective as animal-drawn transportation, handcarts were commonly used to transport smaller goods. The depictions of these tools highlight the elements necessary for all forms of land migration. Migration involves more elements than just the movement of people. The attire of the people depicted in the painting can also be associated with the values of these migrants. People are wearing formal attire, despite travelling and living modestly. Clearly the Mormons prioritized personal presentation more than communal presentation. Painting, as a medium, imitates the physical appearance of a scene, although it also presents the ideas associated with its subject. The painting is an interesting piece to look at on its own, but knowing the story behind the painting sheds a new light on what it is attempting to convey. The Mormon Camp shown in the painting is merely a small snapshot of a much bigger picture, for Council Bluffs was just a stop along the way for the Mormons. The painting was produced by a well-known artist to the area, George Simons, and represents a time sometime between 1834 and 1917. It is based off sketches Simons made while documenting the Mormon exodus. Simons arrived in Council Bluffs between 1849 and 1855, when the region was known as Kanesville (Gregory, 16). The physical state of the artwork today helps convey its age—the paint is beginning to crack and fade over the canvas. These works of art help give a visual record of what Omaha and Council Bluffs may have looked like at the time. Eventually, his painting, Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs, ended up in possession of the Durham Museum in Omaha. The exact timeframe of the painting’s creation is unknown. A rough range of dates is limited only by Simons’ own lifespan (1834-1917), and the time of the subject depicted: the Mormon Trail (1846-1868). Mormonism took root far east of Council Bluffs, in upstate New York. There, a religious leader, Joseph Smith (December 1805 – June 1844), claimed to have received a set of golden plates from an angel, from which he wrote the Book of Mormon in 1830 and founded the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Pierce, 6-7). Persecution forced the Mormons west, to Nauvoo, where they stayed until 1844, when Smith was murdered. Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, soon decided that the Mormons should yet again migrate west, this time to the Great Salt Lake, in what would later become Utah. Throughout global history, persecuted groups have been forced to uproot themselves and to migrate to safer locations. Migration is difficult and potentially deadly, but for many groups it is a necessity for their survival, and while many people in the 19th century regarded the Mormons as little more than nuisances, they could not deny the importance of the Mormons’ migration westward. (Cosmopolitan Art Journal, 82). The Mormons acted as pioneers, laying the road for others outside the Mormon religion to travel into the vast regions of the largely unknown Western United States. The 1,300-mile-long migration along the Mormon Trail began in 1846, taking the Mormons west through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming and finally to Utah. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/238">Figure 2</a>). The journey was treacherous, and many perished along the way. In some places, the Mormon Trail overlapped with the Oregon Trail, but other than that, there were no roads to follow, nor any cities or towns where the weary Mormons could stop or rest. They slept in tents and wagons, and there was “only the wreckage—the remains of camps—the bones of animals and men” who had died before them along the trail to mark the way (White, 24). Food was often hard to come by and the lack of sustenance had disastrous results for health and morale. By the time the Winter Quarters were abandoned, and the Mormons continued their migration west, over seven hundred graves were left behind at the Winter Quarters, and along the trail, families had little more than wagons as shelter, many children “were born and died in these tents of misery” (Cosmopolitan Art Journal, 82). “[We were] wearied and worn down, the bones almost through the skin, not only of myself but of all that were in the company...I never was so hungry in my life. My children cry with hunger and it grieves me and makes me cross,” (Aitken). However, some migrants found value within their suffering:  “When we got on top of the mountain it was the potis seanry that I ever saw in my lif...Hear was a little lake and it was very Clar and cold. Thar was fish but I had lost my hooks and lines so I Codent ketch any of them. Hear was timbor of all kinds of the fir kind and whar I was I cod see wone montan below a nother and Coverd with timber and it was the purtis seanry I evver saw. This sit pad me for my hardship,” (Clark). Nearly 42,000 people made the journey on the Mormon-Carson (Council Bluffs to San Diego) section of the trail in 1850 alone (Owens, 16). The main ways that people moved along the Mormon Trail were by foot, wagon, and handcart (each of which were depicted in the Simons’ painting). (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/239">Figure III</a>) For nearly 20 years, Mormon migrants traveled along the trail, forcing them to find creative ways to bring the goods necessary to establish settlements. Walking proved ineffective when it came to carrying goods, but handcarts and wagons proved substantially more efficient. Prior to 1855, Brigham Young instructed his followers to use covered wagons to transport goods (Bagley, 54). While these wagons provided shelter, carried more goods, and did not require human labor, they did have some shortcomings. Wagons required beasts of burden, which were expensive and required care and occasionally replacement. Most livestock did not survive the 1,300-mile trek and replacements did not come cheap or quickly. Covered wagons were also expensive and took a long time to build. To solve these problems, Brigham Young and Robert Campbell implemented the “Handcart Plan,” (Bagley, 58). The Handcart Plan is especially relevant to the painting because Campbell suggested the plan to Young in a letter from Kanesville—the setting of the painting. It was also written in the period when Simons may have sketched the camp for his painting, which can clearly be seen in Figure 2 (Bagley, 58). In the letter, Campbell quoted a Mormon traveler in Kanesville who described handcarts as “the fulfillment of a Mormon prophecy,” (Bagley, 58). In June of 1956, Brigham Young instructed the construction of over 10,000 handcarts, which were produced in Iowa City (Bagley, 67). While these handcarts were cheaper to produce, the manufacturers in Iowa City could not keep up with their high demand, forcing some trail-goers to wait over a month to receive them (Bagley, 70). Handcarts turned out to be very unpopular among users, due to the physical labor required to use them and their limited carrying capacity. People often died of fatigue while using handcarts, with one handcart captain describing the devices as “two wheeled instruments of torture,” (Bagley, 78). While individual experiences along the Mormon Trail were unique, the impact of migration on the surrounding environment was largely negative. In fact, the environmental impact of trails and other forms of mass migration has had an overall negative effect on the biotic and abiotic materials surrounding areas used for migration. Once the Mormons reached their destination, the migrations did not end. With no one to evict or persecute the Mormons in Utah, they flourished, but this eventually led to a crisis of overpopulation. People were continuing to come, which caused problems for Utah’s agricultural environment. With the abundance of people, too much land was being taken up to support the number of workers. The younger people, who did not have a stake on a plot of land, had to move farther and farther away to support themselves (Sherlock, 54). Aside from a boom in agriculture, the increasing number of people in Utah catalyzed industrialization. These are both major themes in the Anthropocene and illustrate just how big of an impact this religious community’s journeys had. The Mormon Trail played a role in migrations outside of the Mormon religion as well. From 1849 to 1852, Kanesville became the most used departure point for the California Gold Rush than anywhere else along the Missouri River (Hartley, 38). When news of gold in California spread, people came from far and wide to partake in the Gold Rush. Council Bluffs became a center for commerce. Thousands of people swarmed the area, buying out the Mormons’ wagons and supplies so they could head West. This reminds us that movement and settlement were inextricably intertwined historical processes in western migration. The painting, Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs, and the story of migration it depicts, does have important historical contexts. The global theme of migration, specifically rural to urban migration, has had a particularly significant impact to the Anthropocene. Historically, many populations have moved from rural countries to urban cities. <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/240">Figure 4</a> illustrates the move from more rural countries in the Americas to the more urban countries in North America (Meyerson, 185). Urbanization can be a positive thing because “it moves population growth away from rural and protected areas.” However, “it can also increase per capita demand for energy, material goods and services, since migrants to cities often become more affluent and consume more resources,” (Meyerson, 184). The Anthropocene is often characterized as the epoch triggered by human activity. Urbanization may not have been the catalyst of the Anthropocene, but has left its mark via negative human contribution to the environment, including unhealthy water, soil, and air pollution levels (Meyerson, 185). The global population is expected to increase by 3 billion by 2050 (O'Neill et al, 1). This population growth will impact urban areas more, where “urbanization can substantially influence emissions,” (O'Neill et al, 1). Global population growth and urbanization is already projected to increase and will thus have increasingly negative impacts on the environment. Human migration/movement had distinct environmental impacts too. The mechanical and human movement on the trail compacted the soil, which continues to have an impact on the environment today, specifically in ways that contribute to climate change. A survey conducted on the Iowa portion of the Mormon Trail, stretching from Montrose, Iowa to Council Bluffs, found that though the trail has been relatively untouched since its original use, the soil remains compacted from the traffic it once endured 150 years ago (Brevik, 137-138). This revelation carries importance because compacted soil loses the organic matter it usually contains, which plays a role in removing CO2 from the atmosphere (Brevik, 137). Higher amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere increase average global temperature, contributing to the Greenhouse Effect (Brevik, 137).  This study provides direct evidence that human trail migration contributes to climate change. Though the study was conducted exclusively on the Mormon Trail, the effects of soil compaction can be found in trail systems worldwide. The study did not consider untrodden soil—the authors only note that it was a mass land migration on this route that created permanent compaction. This implies that any form of land migration involving people following an exact route will compact the soil on the path. As early as the agricultural revolution, when humans had the means to travel independently with animal herds, trails would become the predominant method of transportation, suggesting that land migration—from the Silk Road or simple walking trails used today—compacts soil, removing mass amounts of organic matter over time, thus worsening human induced climate change over time. Another study found that, more recently, the creation of alkaline paved roads and trails are “the main cause of changes along roads in the area and indicate the leading role of water transport in the soil and consequent vegetation alteration,” (Müllerova, 3839). Changes to the environment were found to be especially threatening to “rare and protected species,” (Müllerova, 3847). The process in which alkaline gravel impacts the surrounding environment can be found in <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/241">Figure 5</a>. While the damage has already been done, the study also finds hope, saying “The National Park authorities started to reconstruct the trails, although recovery is expected to be slow,” (Müllerova, 3839). Unfortunately, while park trails are halting the harmful use of alkaline, the worldwide use of pavement for roads is a larger problem to tackle. The painting, Mormon Camp Meeting, Council Bluffs, illustrates just a small piece of a greater story: one of migration and the environmental impacts that characterize the Anthropocene. Human migration changes not just the people who migrate, but the earth itself. The Mormons, and all those who migrate, can teach future generations about the impacts it has on the earth being tread underfoot. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cassi Adams Laura Gagnon Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Aitken, William. “Adventures of a Mormon,” London Advertiser. (1957) Anson, Clark.  “Recollections of his Journey from Ohio, to California in 1850, with his Experiences in the Mines,” Bancroft Library. Bagley, Will. ""One Long Funeral March": A  Revisionist's View of the Mormon Handcart Disasters." Journal of Mormon History 35, no. 1 (2009): 50-115. Ball, Terry, and Brotherson, Jack. "Environmental Lessons from Our Pioneer Heritage." BYU Studies Quarterly 38, no. 3 (July 7, 1999). Bennett, Richard Edmond. Mormons at the Missouri: A History of the Latter-Day Saints at Winter Quarters and at Kanesville, 1846-52: A Study in American Overland Trail Migration. 80-81. Brevik, E., T. Fenton, and L. Moran. "Effect of Soil Compaction on Organic Carbon Amounts and Distribution, South-Central Iowa." Environmental Pollution 116 (2002): Environmental Pollution, 2002, Vol.116. Gregory, Katie. "The Art of George Simons." Nauvoo Journal, 1997, 16-24. Halon, Rules. Mormon Trail [Map]. 1947. David Rumsey Map Collection.<a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~290740~90062336:M">https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~290740~90062336:M</a>ormon-Trail Hartley, William G. "Council Bluffs/Kanesville, Iowa: A Hub for Mormon Settlements, Operations, and Emigration, 1846-1852." The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 26 (2006): 17-47.<a href="http://www.jstor.org.cuhsl.creighton.edu/stable/43200235"> </a> Kimball, Stanley B. "Mormon Trail Network in Nebraska, 1846-1868: A New Look." Brigham Young University Studies 24, no. 3 (1984): 321-36. McOwen, Micah J. B. "An Earth Used with Judgment, Not to Excess: Distilling a Mormon Approach to Environmental Law." Journal of Law and Religion 23, no. 2 (2007): 673- Meyerson, Frederick A. B., Leticia Merino, and Jorge Durand. "Migration and Environment in the Context of Globalization." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5, no. 4 (2007): 182-90.<a href="http://www.jstor.org.cuhsl.creighton.edu/stable/20440620"> </a> Müllerová, Vítková, and Vítek. "The Impacts of Road and Walking Trails upon Adjacent Vegetation: Effects of Road Building Materials on Species Composition in a Nutrient Poor Environment." Science of the Total Environment 409, no. 19 (2011): 3839-849. O'Neill, Brian C., Michael Dalton, Regina Fuchs, Leiwen Jiang, Shonali Pachauri, and Katarina Zigova. "Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America107, no. 41 (2010): 17521- Owens, Kenneth N. "The Mormon-Carson Emigrant Trail in Western History." Montana: The Magazine of Western History 42, no. 1 (1992): 14-27. Pierce, Perry Benjamin. "The Origin of the “Book of Mormon”." American Anthropologist 1, no. 4 (1899): 675-94. Sherlock, Richard. "Mormon Migration and Settlement after 1875." Journal of Mormon History 2 (1975): 53-68.<a href="http://www.jstor.org.cuhsl.creighton.edu/stable/23286028"> </a> Van Dyke, Judge Walter. "Overland to Los Angeles, By the Salt Lake Route in 1849." Annual            Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, Los Angeles 3, no. 2 (1894): 76-83. "Views from the Top of a Bluff." Cosmopolitan Art Journal 2, no. 2/3 (1858): 82-84. White, Hiram F. "The Mormon Road." The Washington Historical Quarterly 6, no. 4 (1915): 243-50.<a href="http://www.jstor.org.cuhsl.creighton.edu/stable/40474465"> </a> Woods, Thomas A. "Nature within History: Using Environmental History to Interpret Historic Sites." History News 52, no. 3 (1997): 5-8. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1849-1855 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Greenhouse Gasses Migration Mormon Overland Trails https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/21511d7c5e1873710f1748036375c2d0.jpg 024acdcb6ba1cbae25806affb6d101f6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Union Pacific Pepper Shaker Description An account of the resource Omaha became the Union Pacific Headquarters near the end of 1800’s. Photographed here is a pepper shaker that was part of a Union Pacific railcar dining set. This pepper shaker is from The Durham Museum’s collection. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/895b033d5d73ce1967d685a31c83d578.png 97ed12086e566a519657ec86f3861df6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dinner on a Dining Car Subject The topic of the resource Man cutting into a steak on Union Pacific's 'Portland Rose' Dining Car- a baked potato, salad, butter, salt and pepper, and a teapot are also on the table Description An account of the resource A meal enjoyed by a passenger of the Union Pacific Railroad. Top right of image you can see a pepper shaker tucked on the side for convenience. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Photo Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1934 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, L., & Frohardt, H. https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/f7182d5cf9300b039412c26f3dc9fde3.png 1ff01881e46f6757c41640359d082a0b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Village House in Sumatra Description An account of the resource Depicting a village house in Sumatra in 1811, this image provides insight into the Dutch view of Sumatra as an exotic region of production in the nineteenth century. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived “PLATE 19. A VILLAGE HOUSE IN SUMATRA.” W. Bell delt. J.G. Stadler sculpt. Published by W. Marsden, 1810 in William Marsden, The History of Sumatra, Containing An Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with A Description of the Natural Productions, and Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island. Third Ed. (London: J.M'Creery, Black-Horse-Court, 1811). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1811 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Consumer Revolutions Subject The topic of the resource Global Capitalism <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4758/39538672694_da9d00eca7_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Butter-Nut Coffee Advertisement, Durham Photo Archive Description An account of the resource Globalization has brought the world to our doorstep. Expanding networks of trade bring goods from every corner of the world to our homes in Omaha. Although many of us associate globalization with the very recent past, those connections have a long history. This section of the exhibit takes us from the early history of globalization to the present and shows how our consumer decisions transformed economic and environmental relationships around the world. The first era of globalization dawned in the late sixteenth century when the Spanish Empire created the first global currency. The Spanish used gold and silver mined by indigenous peoples in Bolivia to trade for goods in China. Silver coins greased the wheels of early globalization and connected American mines, to tea fields in China, to the markets of Europe. Expanding wealth and power eventually opened up foreign landscapes to American use as well. By the nineteenth century, consumer networks allowed families in Omaha to consume tropical goods like coffee. Today, multinational corporations like ConAgra dominate food production. They use resources from every type of environment and ship their products globally. Consumer revolutions accelerated after the Second World War. Home appliances like televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines promised convenience and an increased quality of life, but new technologies sometimes produced unexpected environmental consequences. These objects remind us that modern consumerism was part of a long history of globalization that transformed global environments. Many of us still use objects like these on a daily basis. As you look through this section, ask yourself how many goods you have used or consumed today are connected in some way to foreign landscapes. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pepper Shaker Subject The topic of the resource By the nineteenth century, pepper was cheap and accessible for most Americans. It was even available to passengers enjoying a meal aboard a Union Pacific dining car, a fact which demonstrates its ubiquity. Although the commoditization of pepper benefited the American consumer, however, it also masked the social and ecological consequences of its consumption. The pepper trade had serious costs for the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Traditionally, Sumatran women had cultivated pepper in small, family gardens. As the demand for pepper increased, forests had to be cleared for large plantations to meet the demand. Many Sumatran women lost their jobs, and deforestation robbed many more people and animals of their homes and of the natural resources they had relied upon. This simple pepper shaker represents the disconnect between the use of pepper and where pepper comes from, demonstrating the global effects of even common products within the Anthropocene. Description An account of the resource Today, pepper has become such a household staple that we hardly spare a thought to where it comes from.  Yet black pepper, cultivated in East Asia, is a long ways from home in a pepper shaker on the American dinner table. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/232">Figure I</a>) Pepper’s modern availability masks the complexity of the global systems involved in its transportation, commoditization, and production. Here we will analyze how a pepper shaker (and its contents) along with countless other products, construct and facilitate the creation of a global commodity chain spanning across oceans, connecting the rainy country of Sumatra to the American midwestern city of Omaha, Nebraska. Commodity chains such as this one link societies and environments around the world through the exploitation of the natural environment and indigenous peoples and the globalization of resources, like pepper, in the development of global trade. Though these themes of global supply and demand and their consequences are not revolutionary, we are exploring the history of pepper cultivation in Sumatra and the commoditization of pepper in the American West (including Omaha) as a means to demonstrate how commoditization of globally-sourced goods like pepper allows international consumers to utilize material products while ignoring their impacts on the peoples and environments involved in their production.  This strips these resources of their global significance and creates a pattern of consumption divorced from morality. Omaha, Nebraska, a major junction of the transcontinental railroad, is one of the many cities which allowed pepper to become a global product.  Referred to as the “Gateway City” (Larsen & Cottrell, 1983, 26), Omaha facilitated the distribution and consumption of pepper, along with many other goods such as, fruits and vegetables, grains, livestock, cotton, tobacco, household and agricultural machines, electricity, and petroleum to name a few. Omaha’s many intersecting rail lines ensured that the American had constant, inexpensive access to global resources. By the 19th century millions of tons of pepper were reaching the United States from overseas (Smith 2004, 66). However, pepper was just another comfort commodity, looked over as a part of the household table or a railcar dining set (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/235">Figure 4</a>). This flow of cheap and easily accessible goods enabled the creation of a global commodity chain; a “network of economic links which integrate transnational labour processes and corporations involved in global sourcing and global marketing of products” (A Dictionary of Sociology, 2018). The continuation of the transcontinental railroad through Omaha signified to many the continuation and realization of the American Manifest Destiny: “...Omaha was the starting point of the grandest undertaking God ever witnessed in the history of the world” (Larsen & Cottrell, 1983, 27). The Western world saw this expansion and modernization as their destiny, American society mimicking globalization occurring worldwide. Omaha built its early economic foundation in commerce from the railroads and the people of Omaha reaped the benefits despite the unseen systems of social and environmental exploitation.  The complex and global system of pepper production and transport which makes this spice so readily available has drastically impacted both the environment and the culture of the community involved in its commoditization, however. Truly a story of globalization, pepper’s history begins in East Asia where it grows in tropical, rainy regions such as Sumatra. Although production of this crop remains limited to these regions even to this day, records indicate that pepper was exported to Mediterranean markets as early as the first century (Pliny 1855, 112). As Western cultures came into greater contact with these regions of production, they established more and more trade routes until, in the early 1800s, the port of Salem, MA became “the world’s premier pepper shipper, controlling the Sumatra market and re-exporting 7.5 million pounds a year,” (Smith 2004, 66). The unlikely fact that a port located halfway around the world from Sumatra could control this market so completely reflects both the globalization of this industry and the distance between producers and consumers. American (and, by extension, Omahan) pepper consumers had little to no concept of where this spice came from in the nineteenth century, and could not have possibly imagined how the system which provided them with this mundane resource was impacting the people and the environment involved in its production. Yet, despite consumer ignorance of the effects of pepper production on the people and environment of Sumatra, these effects were numerous, and their legacy continues to impact Sumatra to this day. One way cultivation of Piper nigrum has altered the environment of Sumatra is through the rampant deforestation which it inspired. Cultivation of pepper had always demanded some forest clearance; however, it was not until the Anglo-Dutch introduction of plantation agriculture that the cultivation of P. nigrum in Sumatra became truly detrimental to the local environment.. Prior to the fifteenth century, before pepper was cultivated primarily for export, the indigenous people of Sumatra either foraged for this crop or grew it in private gardens (Reid 1995, 98). This practice of limited cultivation in small, private gardens rotated only once every one to two years had very little impact on the densely forested environment in which pepper already grew naturally. In fact, Reid goes as far as to deem the impact of pepper cultivation on the Sumatran environment prior to the fifteenth century as “negligible,” (Reid 1995, 98). This style of cultivation, although environmentally sustainable, would prove incapable of sustaining the larger scale of production which Western European demand necessitated. Once the English and Dutch established trade routes with Sumatra and demand for pepper exports grew, the growing of pepper transitioned from the indigenous, horticultural style to the European-imposed plantation style. By the eighteenth century, the Anglo-Dutch had successfully implemented plantation-style cultivation across Sumatra and, through a system of rewards, punishment, and constant vigilance, had developed tight control over this industry. A contemporary historian during this period, William Marsden, describes Dutch regulation of pepper production in Sumatra in 1811, writing, “rewards and punishments are distributed to the planters as they appear, from the degree of their industry or remissness, deserving of either” (Marsden 1811, chapter 7 and <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/236">Figure V</a>). The large-scale, militant production of pepper which had become the norm by the beginning of the nineteenth century had a severe impact on the Sumatran environment, especially in terms of deforestation. In order to meet the demands of the European spice traders, planters had to cultivate pepper constantly. This led to rapid depletion of nutrients in the soil, which meant that growers would have to clear new areas of forest to plant new gardens every few years. Using statistics on the exportation of pepper crops as well as knowledge of these farming practices, Reid estimates the amount of primary forest cleared for pepper cultivation from the 17th to the 19th century to be 760,000ha (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/233">Figure II</a>). As these figures demonstrate, global consumption of pepper had a drastic impact on the Sumatran environment during this period, whether global consumers were aware of this impact or not. Indeed, deforestation continues to impact Sumatra today (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/234">Figure III</a>). As recently as 2014, CNN noted that deforestation as a means of increasing agricultural production continues to threaten Sumatran forest, with deforestation destroying an additional 25% of the Sumatran forest between 1985 and 2008 (Watts 2013, 1). Taking into account both the immediate and long term impacts of pepper consumption on Sumatran deforestation, then, one must acknowledge the grave effect which the seemingly trivial act of pepper consumption had on the Sumatran environment. Considering the system of pepper production, export, and consumption holistically reveals the power of even small acts to cause dire environmental changes in our current, globalized system, and cautions against the dangers of blind consumerism. Another unintended consequence of pepper cultivation in Sumatra, the commoditization of Sumatran women which resulted from plantation-style pepper cultivation further demonstrates the ripple effect simple acts can have within a global system, reinforcing the need for conscientious consumerism.  Most scholars agree that, prior to European domination of the region, Sumatran women enjoyed a comparatively higher societal status than did their western counterparts (Andaya 1995, 166-170). This elevated social status was, as Andaya contends, directly linked to the control which Sumatran women weided over an important resource: pepper. Since women were primarily in charge of the planting, cultivation, harvesting and selling pepper, women earned prestige in Sumatran society as valuable contributors/economic producers of this coveted crop. Consequently, due to their participation in the pepper economy, Sumatran women enjoyed more respect and freedom than did the Western women who would later buy the crops they produced.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> The equalizing effects of horticultural pepper cultivation endured for many centuries; however, they, too, like the Sumatran forest, would become collateral damage in the battle to keep up with demands for pepper. European implementation of plantation-style cultivation of pepper in Sumatra led to rampant deforestation. But the detrimental impacts of European intervention in Sumatra did not end there. As Europeans restructured the Sumatran economy to meet the growing global demands for pepper, they removed women from the pepper economy completely, lowering women’s social status through the destruction of their once-valued societal role. Ramusack explains the ramifications European-style plantation cultivation had for women, writing: As European demands led to large-scale plantations, men displaced women, for whom plantation labor was incompatible with domestic duties and contrary to religious injunctions about female modesty. Because coastal centers were notorious sites of prostitution, the same proscriptions also restricted women from taking their pepper crops to the cities for sale to Europeans (Ramusack 1997, 126). As Ramusack reveals, the European implementation of the plantation system of cultivating pepper had serious consequences for Sumatran women, at once depriving them of their share in a lucrative and societally valued industry and imposing new, limiting ideas of modesty upon them. Ironically, due to the rigidity of the European ideals of modesty which prohibited women from engaging in traditional means of supporting themselves, many turned to prostitution. In his travel to Sumatra in 1703, Nieuhoff remarks, “The women are well fhaped, and of a fairifh complexion, with very white teeth; they make no account of chaftity, nor look upon it as a difgrace to explofe themfelves for money,” (Nieuhof 2002, 189). The radical transition from a society which not only provided women the means of supporting themselves but also valued them for this trait, to a society which deprived women of the means of supporting themselves and then derided their desperation, demonstrates the expendability of human beings within a globalized system. For the women of Sumatra, Western European commoditization of pepper represented the death knell of their societal status. Moreover, it constituted the devastation of the hopes, dreams, and dignity of many women who were once independent but now had to support themselves through prostitution. However, the pain of these women remained invisible to the consumers buying pepper off their supermarket shelves or pouring it over their eggs in the morning. By the time pepper entered the small, glass pepper shaker, it had lost all connection with the place and people involved in its production. Thus, while standing in the checkout line or eating his/her eggs, this global consumer did not have to consider the winners or the losers in the system which produced the product they were consuming. The deforestation or disenfranchisement of women in Sumatra was no less real, however, despite the consumer’s blissful ignorance. Consequently, while the global system may protect consumers from the mental burden of the truths behind the products they consume, it does not protect consumers from the immorality which they endorse through their consumption of these products. It is evident that the cultivation of pepper has had immense global impacts. The average American entering a midwest grocery store in Omaha, NE, enjoys the luxury of tossing the pepper grinder into the cart without a second thought. The commoditization of goods such as pepper has obscured the exploitation of people and environments involved in the production of these products. Modern technology has made nature cheap for humans to use, but has treating people cheaply become the price? The Anthropocene is a new geological epoch in the record of time defined by human induced change.  But many of these human induced changes, meant to benefit the growing human aggregate, have actually become dehumanizing as our exploitation has led to the use of humans and cultures only as resources. The story of pepper provides one example of globalized commodification disguising environmental histories. The effect of this trade on the region of production in Sumatra reflects the dangers of a system which divorces products from their environmental and cultural significance. In commercializing the natural resource of pepper, the global system has, in effect, separated the act of consumption from the moral consequences for the region and the people of Sumatra. Thus, increasingly global commodity chains provide one example of anthropogenic change that is decreasingly anthropocentric.  <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Additionally, due to the increased value women earned as producers/economic contributors in East Asian Society, Sumatran women also enjoyed greater social advantages than did women in Western society. For example, bilateral descent was a widespread occurrence in Sumatra, and male-female roles in indigenous rituals were largely complementary (Andaya 1995, 3). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Olivia Fuson Hannah Yackley Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Andaya, Barbara. "Women and Economic Change: The Pepper Trade in Pre-Modern Southeast Asia." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38, no. 2 (1995): 165-190.  "Aksarben Foundation History - Our Past, Present and Future." Aksarben Foundation. 2018. Accessed November 07, 2018. <a href="https://www.aksarben.org/heritage/">https://www.aksarben.org/heritage/</a>.  Basyuni, et al. “Deforestation Trend in North Sumatra over 1990-2015.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 122, no. 1, 2018, pp. 4.  Bathke, Deborah J., Robert J. Oglesby, Clinton M. Rowe, and Donald A. Wilhite. "University of Nebraska." Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change, September 2014, 14-16. Accessed November 6, 2018. doi:10.4135/9781412963893.n675.  Bostwick, L., & Frohardt, H. (1934). Dinner on a Dining Car[Photograph]. Bostwick-Frohardt Collection, Durham Museum, Omaha.  "commodity chains." A Dictionary of Sociology. . Encyclopedia.com. (November 13, 2018). <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/commodity-chains">https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/dictionaries-thesauruses- pictures-and-press-releases/commodity-chains</a>  Chains, Absorbing." Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, 2004. Doi: 10.1002/0471667196.ess0008.  Gaveau, Wandono, & Setiabudi. "Three Decades of Deforestation in Southwest Sumatra: Have Protected Areas Halted Forest Loss and Logging, and Promoted Re-Growth?" Biological Conservation 134, no. 4 (2007): 495-504.  Grant, H. Roger. ""Minnesota's Good Railroad": The Omaha Road." Minnesota History 57, no. 4 (2000): 198-210. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/20188231">http://www.jstor.org/stable/20188231</a>.  Greever, William S. "Railroad Revisionism." The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 53, no. 1 (1962): 44-45. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40487714">http://www.jstor.org/stable/40487714</a>.  "History." Omaha Steel. March 21, 2017. Accessed November 07, 2018. <a href="http://www.omahasteel.com/about-us/history/">http://www.omahasteel.com/about-us/history/</a>.  Larsen, L., & Cottrell B. (1983). The Gate City: A History of Omaha Lawrence H. Larsen Barbara J. Cottrell. Pruett Publishing Company   Larsen, & Larsen, Lawrence H. (2007). Upstream metropolis : An urban biography of Omaha and Council Bluffs. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.  Marsden, William. The History of Sumatra, Containing An Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with A Description of the Natural Productions, and Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island. Third Ed. London: J.M'Creery, Black-Horse-Court, 1811.  Neiuhof, Johan. "Remarkable Voyages and Travels to the East-Indies." In A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 2, translated and edited by Awnsham Churchill, 146-275. Asian Educational Services, 2002.  Pliny the Elder. "Book XII." In The Natural History of Pliny. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1855.  Potts, James B. "THE NEBRASKA CAPITAL CONTROVERSY, 1854—59." Great Plains Quarterly 8, no. 3 (1988): 172-82. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/23531122">http://www.jstor.org/stable/23531122</a>.  Ramusack, Barbara. "Women and Gender in South and Southeast Asia." In Women's History in Global Perspective edited by Bonnie Smith, 125-150. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1997.  Reid, Anthony. "Humans and Forests in Pre-colonial Southeast Asia." Environment and History 1, no. 1 (1995): 93-110.  Smith, J. N. "The King of Spices." World Trade 17, no. 11 (2004): 66. <a href="https://login.cuhsl.creighton.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=14738428&site=ehost-live">https://login.cuhsl.creighton.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=14738428&site=ehost-live</a>  Watts, Jenni. "The Devastation of Indonesia's Forests." CNN (October 14, 2013): <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/14/world/expedition-sumatra-episode-5-blog/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/14/world/expedition-sumatra-episode-5-blog/index.html</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Commodity Chain Consumption Indonesia Pepper Union Pacific https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/2b2f89653fc0231cc74b330a688be351.jpg c4e5bbc72ad5b3891b4c316de0212baa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Samantha Arrowheads Description An account of the resource Images of the arrowheads located at the Durham museum. From the shape of these, it can be determined what region of the United States they most likely came from. Photograph by Ali Cunningham. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Taming the Landscape Subject The topic of the resource The Early Anthropocene <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4740/38752446300_776a102fdd_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Description An account of the resource When did people begin to take control of the global environment? Humans have shaped their local environments for hundreds of thousands of years. As populations increased, their impacts expanded. Two changes greatly accelerated human influence on a global scale: the movement of hunting societies and the development of agriculture. By the end of the last ice age, humans had migrated across much of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Whenever humans appeared, a wave of extinctions followed. In the Americas, large animals such as the Mastodon and Giant Beaver went extinct shortly after the arrival of people. Although scientists debate the origin of these mass extinctions (changing climate likely played a role), hunting was a significant factor. The development of agriculture played an even more important role in global environmental change. People began domesticating plants and animals around the world roughly 12,000 years ago. The stone (“lithic”) tools in our exhibit speak to this dramatic change. Agriculture often required clearing forested lands, irrigating, or fertilizing landscapes to make them suitable for crops. These changes were the foundation for settlement and later the rise of complex civilizations all over the world. Agriculture and hunting continue to reshape environments on a global scale today. The bison in this exhibit represents the consequences of modern overhunting and the single-wheel hoe represents our continued reliance on agriculture. These objects remind us that “taming the landscape” revolutionized societies, but they also produced global environmental consequences. They connect us to a deep past and symbolize a transformation that continues to shape the modern world. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arrowheads Subject The topic of the resource Arrowheads are one of the most recognized tools from the Native American tribes. Along with fire, tribes in Nebraska like the Omaha likely used them for hunting. Native Americans used fire and projectile weapons to herd and hunt animals. This resulted in significant environmental changes in the Omaha area. Fire use changed plant communities. Some became more fire-tolerant while large, long-lived trees declined. This turned large forests into grasslands. Scientists and historians argue that overhunting led to the endangerment or extinction of many species. This is part of a long, and contested, theory of overkill whose implications stretch back over 20,000 years. These changes were not only seen in Omaha. Arrowhead use and burning practices took place all over the world. If arrowheads are the start of the Anthropocene, this new age started tens of thousands of years ago. Description An account of the resource The Anthropocene is a new age defined by a changing environment, due to the presence of human action. Anthropocene discourse is largely Eurocentric, privileging changes wrought by European Empires, the expansion of global capital, or industrial transformations of the environment (Carrington, 2016). Global modifications of the environment have a deeper lineage, however. One such lineage is the use of Arrowheads and other tools by native American tribes. Arrowheads are an important artifact for many Native American tribes, including the Omaha tribe. Arrowheads are important in Omaha’s environmental history because they represent pre-Columbian management of the Plains landscape. These arrowheads link Omaha’s environmental history to the global history of the Anthropocene because they represent the changes produced by human hunting. The peoples of the Plains used projectiles and fire mold the environment to their needs. Although distinctly American, they point to the larger implications of these tools on global environments. The territory of Nebraska was home to diverse peoples long before the arrival of Europeans. The city of Omaha takes its name from the Omaha tribe who originally migrated west from modern Ohio (Wakeley, 1917). Originally, they were mainly hunters and farmers, then they took part in fur trading, and eventually came under the control of their powerful allies, the Pawnee tribe (Fletcher, 2013). During the tribe’s history they are noted to have faced hardships from the enemies of the Pawnee tribe, who were the Sioux tribe. They also faced hardships from smallpox and other disease. From war and disease, they had a population of under 300 in the early 1800s, from almost 3,000 a few decades earlier (Legends of America - The Omaha Indians). The arrowheads were used for hunting by most indigenous people who lived on the Great Plains of North America, like the Omaha. Arrowheads are made in a variety of shapes, most often based on the region in which they were made. Based on the size and color of the arrowheads presented at The Durham Museum (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/229">Figure I</a>), our arrowheads are most likely Samantha Arrows, which are primarily found in the Northern Plains of the United States (Samantha Arrowhead). Arrowheads are historically important because many tribes were migratory, which required that they find ways to carry their belongings and possessions with them. They often camped near rivers where they hunted for bison and found edible plants in the spring (Fagan, 1994). These indigenous people used a wide variety of materials to produce arrowheads. Obsidian, for example, was a volcanic glass found in the Rocky Mountains. Chert, a crystalline quartz, had razor-sharp edges which was also used to make arrowheads. Antler was also used to make arrowheads when suitable rock material wasn’t available. Some arrowheads were also reusable. Analysis from the Gila River in Arizona found that some arrow points were used to hunt large animals and they could be retrieved and used again while other unnotched points were only used one time and were usually used to kill people (Loendorf, 2015). This gives more context behind how the arrowheads were used. Most often though, these Indigenous people of the plains found use for the arrowheads in hunting, specifically for bison. Hunting was integral to Native American culture and it tied Plains peoples to the land in diverse material and spiritual ways. Anthropologist David Lewis argues that Plain peoples built relationships with the land that transcended settlement; relationships that proved central to their identities (Lewis, 1995). Perhaps due to this close connection to the land, they used the environment as tools for many purposes. They planted many types of crops to feed themselves and their animals, they used the skin of hunted animals for clothing and shelter, hunted large game like bison, and fished river systems. They lived with, but also manipulated the land to provide food and shelter for themselves. Plains natives employed fire as one of these environmental tools. Charcoal layers provide archeological evidence that Native American populations all over the Midwest and in Omaha used fire regularly (Roos, 2018). The multiple charcoal layers’ present suggest frequent, large-scale burning around the time period when the Omaha tribe were present in the area. Archeologists often speculate as to the purpose of such wide-ranging fire use. Some argue that natives burned landscapes in spiritual traditions, to improve the range of sight over the landscape, or to open migration pathways (Lewis, 1993). Most agree they were used for hunting though (Delcourt and Delcourt, 1997). Tribes used controlled burning to drive the megafauna (including bison) into hunting areas. They controlled the migration of animals; thus, increasing the impact and effectiveness of hunting. This practice was especially important before the re-arrival of horses when hunting was done on foot (Hämäläinen, 2003). Fire opened diverse resources to human use such as animal meat, bones, buckskin, hair, rawhide, stomach, and horns; all of which had multiple uses including clothing, shelter, tools such as arrowheads, and many more (Natives - Native Americans). Plains burning drastically changed the composition of the land. Fire promotes plant species that are fire-tolerant, which tend to be fast-spreading, short-lived plants such as the prairie grasses that dominated much of the Midwest. Fire also suppressed large tree species that now are more prevalent (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/230">Figure II</a>). In addition to promoting fire tolerant species, anthropogenic fire regimes cleared brush, promoted seed germination, and increased resources yields (Klimaszewski-Patterson and Mensin, 2016). All of these had a large impact on the environment of the prairies in and around Nebraska for centuries. In short, this increase in fire improved soil fertility, which favored native species. This increased biodiversification of plants, including grasses, forbs, and trees. Biodiverse vegetation promoted faunal biodiversity as well. Beyond hunting, fire use was beneficial for soil fertility, which improved Native agriculture. Arrowheads used for hunting had global impacts such as the overkilling of animals like American bison. This extinction not only included bison, but also the extinction of species such as birds, lemmings, and salamanders. It is unknown how many mammalian species disappeared, but it is estimated that at least thirty-five mammalian genera had vanished. Most mammals that weighed more than one hundred pounds became extinct because of how they would have been seen as attractive to hunters. Tusked mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, rhinoceros-sized pampatheres, and giant armadillos also vanished. Other herbivores also vanished (Krech, 2018). The overkill hypothesis states that extinction is a result because of human hunting which in turn causes death rates to exceed birth rates. This implies that humans have a direct impact on overhunting and the extinction of animals. Koch and Barnosky (2006) similarly found that about fifty thousand years ago, ecosystems all over the world were populated with large animals, but they are now extinct. They stated that worldwide, 90 genera of mammals that weighed over 44 kg had disappeared. Specifically, in North America, there used to proboscideans, giant sloths, camels, saber-tooth cats, beavers, etc. By about 10,000 years ago, most of these animals had vanished. The extinction of these large animals provides strong support that humans contributed to the extinction of these animals and this shows the relation of mass extinctions to the Anthropocene. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/id/231">Figure III</a>) In addition, this extinction happened on a global scale. The Native American hunting patterns did influence the species composition, though not as much as other mass extinctions. Plains peoples have shaped the environment for centuries, but it is important to consider the dynamic world that the hunters were operating in during that time. For example, Isenberg (2000) looks at how the destruction of bison as the result of a complex process that involves the natural environment of Great Plains, the invasion of the Euro Americans, as well as the economy of the Plains Indians. There were natural causes of death such as fires, drowning, and competition from other grazers that all affected the population of bison on the plains. Natural mortality also could have aided in the catastrophic decline in the population of bison. The combination of the hunting practices in the Great Plains as well as the volatility of the natural environment both aided in the destruction of these herds of animals which is important to keep in mind. North American Native Americans were not the only peoples who used fire or projectiles to change and manipulate the landscape around them. In fact, use of fire as a tool for hunting likely predates the evolution of the species (Guthrie, 1970). Human communities on every inhabited continent wielded fire and many developed projectile hunting tools (James, et. al. 1989). All over the world there was environmental changes cause by fire because the fire was being controlled by humans. Indicating global environmental, anthropogenic changes. These changes, while not representing a traditional “golden spike” should be considered when talking about the anthropocene for several reasons. Some include that it was not localized to one area, there were large scale environmental effects, and the changes were caused by human influence. The ecological changes represented in the transition to increased fire regimes is something that has continued to be studied today. The “Anthropocene” designation claims that the earth has entered the “Age of Humans”. It is important, therefore, to consider the full measure of humanity’s long history of environmental impact. These arrowheads represent the impact of fire and hunting on the global environment. Current conservation efforts in the United States and Canada have been increasingly focused on restoring the landscape to its “pristine condition, which is often defined by the absence of people (Wooster, 1996). This has the unfortunate consequence of erasing the long history of people from the landscape. If the arrowheads teach us anything, it’s that people have played an integral part in creating these “pristine” areas. The modernist bias of the Anthropocene debate threatens that as well. Where the focus is on increasing fire regimes and megafaunal grazers such as bison. While increasing megafauna like bison would be considered more like when there were no humans, increasing fire use would actually be characteristic of when Native Americans were present, not when there were no humans in North America (Matlack, 2013). Despite these minor inconsistencies, it is evident that the impact of the Native American tools used for hunting, arrowheads and fire, have caused a global impact, which is why they should be considered when discussing the Anthropocene. 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Accessed November 6, 2018.<a href="https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_08"> https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_08</a> Fagan, Brian. "Bison Hunters of the Northern Plains." Archaeology 47, no. 3 (1994): 37-41. Accessed October 7, 2018<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41766565"> http://www.jstor.org/stable/41766565</a>.  Fletcher, C. Alice. Life among the Indians: First Fieldwork among the Sioux and Omahas ed. Scherer, C. Joanna, DeMallie, J. Raymond (University of Nebraska Press, 2013). Guthrie, R. D. "Bison Evolution and Zoogeography in North America During the Pleistocene." The Quarterly Review of Biology45, no. 1 (1970): 1-15. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2817929">http://www.jstor.org/stable/2817929</a>  Isenberg, Andrew C., The Destruction of Bison. New Jersey: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Jin, Y.G, Wang, Y, Wang, W, Shang, Q.H, Cao, C.Q, Erwin, D.H. “Pattern of Marine Mass Extinction Near the Permian-Triassic Boundary in South China” Science 21 (2000). Accessed November 6, 2018.<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.289.5478.432"> https://doi.org/10.1126/science.289.5478.432</a> Klimaszewski-Patterson, Anna, Mensing, A. Scott. “Multi-disciplinary approach to identifying Native American impacts on Late Holocene forest dynamics in the southern sierra Nevada range California, USA.” Anthropocene 15 (2016): 37-48. Accessed October 8, 2018.<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305416300327"> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305416300327</a>  Koch, P.L., Barnowsky, A.D. “Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate” The Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 37 (2006): 215-250. Accessed December 8, 2018. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415">https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415</a>                                                            Krech, Shepard. “Chapter One” The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (W.W. Norton and Company, 1999).<a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/krech-indian.html"> https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/krech-indian.html</a> Laliberte, Andrea S., and William J. Ripple. “Wildlife Encounters by Lewis and Clark: A Spatial Analysis of Interactions between Native Americans and Wildlife.” BioScience53, no. 10 (October 2003): 994–1003. Lewis, David Rich. "Native Americans and the Environment: A Survey of Twentieth-Century Issues." American Indian Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1995): 423-50. doi:10.2307/1185599.  Lewis, David Rich. "Still Native: The Significance of Native Americans in the History of the Twentieth-Century American West." The Western Historical Quarterly 24, no. 2 (1993): 203-27. doi:10.2307/970936.  Loendorf, Chris, Lynn Simon, Daniel Dybowski, M. Kyle Woodson, R. Scott Plumlee, Shari Tiedens, and Michael Withrow. 2015. “Warfare and Big Game Hunting: Flaked-Stone Projectile Points along the Middle Gila River in Arizona.” Antiquity 89 (346): 940–53. doi:10.15184/aqy.2015.28. “Natives - Native Americans” All about Bison. Accessed November 4, 2018.<a href="https://allaboutbison.com/natives/"> https://allaboutbison.com/natives/</a>  Nowacki, Gregory J, Abrams, Marc. D. “The Demise of Fire and “Mesophcation” of Forests in the Eastern United States” Image. BioScience 58 no. 2 (February 2008).  Matlack, R. Glenn. “Reassessment of the Use of Fires as a Management Tool in Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America” Conservation Biology 27 no. 5 (September 2013). Accessed October 7, 2018.<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12121"> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12121</a>  Pekka, Hämäläinen; The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Cultures, Journal of American History, Volume 90, Issue 3, 1 December 2003, Pages 833–862,<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3660878"> https://doi.org/10.2307/3660878</a>  Roos, I. Christopher, Zedeno, N. Maria, Hollenback, L. Kacy, Erlick, M.H. Mary. “Indigenous impacts on North American Great Plains fire regimes of the past millennium.” National Academy of Sciences. August, 2018. Accessed October 7, 2018.<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/115/32/8143/tab-article-info"> http://www.pnas.org/content/115/32/8143/tab-article-info</a> “Samantha Projectile Point, Samantha Arrowhead” Projectile Points Database. Accessed October 7, 2018.<a href="http://www.projectilepoints.net/Points/Samantha_Dart.html"> http://www.projectilepoints.net/Points/Samantha_Dart.html</a>  Steven R. James, R. W. Dennell, Allan S. Gilbert, Henry T. Lewis, J. A. J. Gowlett, Thomas F. Lynch, W. C. McGrew, Charles R. Peters, Geoffrey G. Pope, Ann B. Stahl, and Steven R. James, "Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene: A Review of the Evidence [and Comments and Replies]," Current Anthropology 30, no. 1 (Feb., 1989): 1-26.<a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/203705"> https://doi.org/10.1086/203705</a> “The Omaha Indians - True Nebraskans” Legends of America: Exploring history, destinations, people, & legends of this great country since 2003. Accessed December 8, 2018. <a href="https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-omaha/">https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-omaha/</a> Wakeley, C. Arthur. Omaha: The Gate City and Douglas County Nebraska (The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1917) Wooster, M. Martin. 1996. “The Digest: Science and environment.” American Enterprise. 7, no. 4: 90. Accessed October 8, 2018.<a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=4e0b8517-15ba-420a-bde4-4c1d4d1767fd%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=9607104524&db=bth"> </a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Fire Hunting Lithic Tools Overkill Projectiles https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/94462c35734989111bd47633537294f9.jpg 654fbba492deae4e0c43cefb0f9763ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Omaha Horse Railway Company Bond Description An account of the resource An image of our object, a mortgage bond issued by the Omaha Horse Railway Company in 1874. As noted, seven small tear-away receipts at four dollars apiece are missing. The bond can be found at the Durham Museum in Omaha, NE. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/8ee35cd08a9c8e391c2a53e53146e0f1.jpg 6cf3cbf35379a631ce7e934d82f84377 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Omaha Horse Railway Company Bond Description An account of the resource An image of our object, a mortgage bond issued by the Omaha Horse Railway Company in 1874. As noted, seven small tear-away receipts at four dollars apiece are missing. The bond can be found at the Durham Museum in Omaha, NE. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/3c82b68dcaa89296093e3b608ab3dc04.jpg d4f7dc95c0afb5a7d109974ab171457b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Omaha Horse Railway Company Bond Description An account of the resource An image of our object, a mortgage bond issued by the Omaha Horse Railway Company in 1874. As noted, seven small tear-away receipts at four dollars apiece are missing. The bond can be found at the Durham Museum in Omaha, NE. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conquering Time and Space Subject The topic of the resource <div>Industrial Revolutions <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4704/39667361775_2e3264c4bf_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> <a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~24266~880086:-Birdseye-view-Great-Plains-#" title="Bird Eye View - Rumsey" target="_blank">Detail(Birdseye view Great Plains)Knight, Leonard & Co.,Engravers and Printers, Chicago. (1890) David Rumsey.com </a></div> Description An account of the resource Industrial revolutions fundamentally transformed the world’s social and economic order. Beginning in Great Britain in the eighteenth century, European empires expanded industrialization into a global phenomenon that created spectacular wealth and unprecedent power for western countries, but also led to new social conflict and increased the gap between rich and poor. Industrialization also led to profound changes in the global environment. Advances in transportation and telecommunications expanded the reach of industrial powers. The railroad and the telegraph allowed people to tap distant natural resources more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Contemporaries praised this “annihilation of time and space” and Omaha was central to this story. The first transcontinental telegraph began in Omaha and was completed in 1861. In 1863, the Union Pacific chose Omaha as the eastern terminus for the transcontinental railroad. By 1867, the United States had built the world’s largest railroad network, business leaders communicated from coast to coast, and Omaha stood at the center. As railroads and the telegraph shrank time and space, cities expanded. Streetcars promoted urban growth and the rise of the first suburbs. The objects in this section show rail and the telegraph reshaped environments during this era of industrialization. As you move through this section of the exhibit, consider how transportation and telecommunication connects Omaha to the wider world and to global environments today. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Omaha Horse Railway Bond Subject The topic of the resource How did Omaha expand and evolve into the modern, urban setting we see today? As Omaha grew, getting to and from businesses consumed more and more of people’s time. In 1867, responding to the problem, the Omaha Horse Railway Company opened the first horse-drawn streetcar line in the city. To help fund its operations, the company issued mortgage bonds (like the one seen here) in 1874. In the late nineteenth century, the United States was well on its way to becoming an industrial, urban power. This transition did not happen overnight, though. Before people drove their cars to work, the horse-drawn streetcar was your only alternative to traveling by foot. It set the stage for the expansion of Omaha’s suburbs and the pollution produced by the people living in them. Description An account of the resource The emergence of the horse-drawn streetcar showcased the ingenious innovation of man in his quest to conquer time. The horse-drawn streetcar responded to the necessity for methods of intercity travel for people as populations continued to grow. The hybrid design of the horse-drawn streetcar combined the natural power of the horse with the industrial-age iron tracks. The establishment and expansion of the horse railway system in Omaha facilitated the city’s expansion. It was a bridge between animal and machine power that moved Omaha into an expanding industrial urbanized frontier. It ensured continuity and ease of travel to neighboring regions and communities. The Omaha Horse Railway was an archetypal organic machine representative of the world-altering impacts of industrial urbanization. The horse-drawn railway reached the frontier Nebraska Territory in 1867. Prior to its arrival, the sleepy western gateway city was a frontier town barren of any timber, only miles of rolling hills and prairie grass. The city only had a few brick buildings and hugged the banks of the Missouri River (Hendee, 2015). The horse-drawn streetcar was nothing more than a omnibus on iron train tracks pulled by four horses. First introduced in New York in 1832 to serve the Harlem-New York City area (The Evening Post, 1833), its arrival in Omaha signaled the Nebraska territory had entered a new industrial age. The entirety of the Omaha horse-drawn streetcar market would be dominated by the Omaha Horse Railway Company, chartered by the legislative assembly in 1867 (Martin, 1978). To help construct the foundations of the rail system, the Omaha Horse Railway Company introduced many incentives. Our object is a mortgage bond issued by the Omaha Horse Railway Company. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/223">Figure I</a>) The document is made of parchment and has smaller slips for the bond claims. The bond is valued at one hundred dollars with twenty slips that can be cut out in exchange for four dollars and accrued value at an established interest rate. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/224">Figure II</a>) The slips could be exchanged on two dates; the first of January and July each year. The mortgage bond on display is missing seven slips, indicating that the previous holder could have possibly already exchanged twenty-eight dollars. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/225">Figure III</a>) The bond also has information indicating that the Omaha Horse Railway Company was established through an act by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nebraska on February 18th, 1867. The bond was issued in 1874 with the last exchange slip due in 1884. The bond can be exchanged at the Omaha office of the State Bank of Nebraska. After being granted an ordinance by the Omaha City Council, construction on the rail tracks began. The first shovelful of earth to be removed was dug on Farnam Street and Ninth Street on November 13, 1868 (Martin, 1975). With the expansion and success of Union Pacific Railroad, Omaha was a growing frontier outpost and people flocked to the city. The city grew from 1,883 residents in 1860 to 102,555 residents in 1900 (Nebraska State Data Center, 2010), and the horse railway was a innovative method to help the growing city. Omaha was still relatively compact, however. At its inception, the horse railway operated from Ninth and Farnam Street―the heart of downtown― to Sixteenth Street and Capitol Avenue. Sixteenth Street was as far west as the track could go before the steep hills proved challenging for the horses (Thomas, 2017). To bypass this problematic terrain, the lines spread to serve North and South Omaha and avoided steep hills. The potential benefits of having a street railroad system excited the population. Even before the groundbreaking took place on Ninth and Farnam, news that the tracks would run down 16th and 23rd streets were enough to get people to spring for prime real estate on the two streets (Martin, 1975). By the 1870s, the company had expanded its services to both North and South Omaha, running along 24th and 26th streets. But as the demand for services increased, particularly with the concentration of homes along the track lines, the company needed a maintenance shop to service the North Omaha area. In 1884, a barn was built on the corner of 24th and Lake Street, the barn consisted of a car shop, a corral, and shed. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/226">Figure IV</a>) The barn was so large it could stable 235 horses, enough to serve both North and South Omaha (Fletcher, n.d). The horses are unique in that they are a living component of this system, finding themselves displaced from their natural habitats and domesticated for city transit. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/228">Figure V</a>) As such, they required basic maintenance and living requirements such as food and housing—resources that also came at the expense of the natural environment. It was estimated that to move one ton at 2.9 miles per hour along flat, paved terrain, a horse would require 3,421 calories of nutritional intake (McShane, 2007). Because the digestive systems of horses were able to metabolize and utilize low-quality grains, horses used within railway transportation were fed a diet of oats and hay. To meet the caloric approximations described, it was estimated that railway horses consumed anywhere between 13-20 pounds of oats and 8-12 pounds of hay per day. Maintenance of horses were not their only downfall, however; horses were capable of transmitting disease and were eventually deemed financially inefficient, given the technological innovations that lie ahead of their time. The close compactness of cities made the spread for diseases easier. In 1872, the “Great Epizootic” struck Boston’s horse railway system leaving every horse either sick or deceased (Mohl, 1997). Alongside Boston, an estimated 80 percent of New York City’s horses suffered from disease, leaving large swaths of New Yorkers immobile (“The Horse Distemper”, 1872). By 1894, discussions held in New York concerned the issue of manure and its impact on public health, as it was estimated that its horse population exceeded 175,000 and was producing urine and manure at an uncontrollable rate (Morris, 2007). Urbanization accelerated, but there remained no clear separation between nature and culture. The advent of horse drawn railway systems seemingly catalyzed human society’s urge to transform the natural landscape to accommodate the needs of the public. By paving roads and laying rails within them, Omaha and many other developing cities were able to impose man-made technologies upon what was once prairie or forest, comprised of vegetation, dirt and mud. Mud, in fact, proved itself to be a nuisance to early horse-drawn transportation methods; not only was traveling across natural terrain unclean, but was also energetically inefficient. By paving roads and establishing railway systems, horses and mules were able to carry loads at two to three times efficiency (McKee, 2014). Omaha was not the only city however, to use the horse railway system. Expanding networks of horse railways emerged in cities across the United States and the world, from New York to San Francisco and Paris to Montevideo. Having a system in your city meant that you were entering the new industrial century. The horse railway system was first introduced in Nantes, France in 1826, quickly spreading to Paris and London by 1832. New York City got its first cars in 1828. By 1840, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore all had established lines (Young, 2015). Another wave of expansion occurred in the 1860s, by the 1880s, almost 20,000 horse streetcars traveled on more than 30,000 miles of street railways across the United States (Young, 2015). Just as the horse railway helped Omaha to expand, other cities using it also grew. In Frankfort, Kentucky, which started its horse railway system in 1887, real-estate developers constantly lobbied for the streetcar line to reach the community of Bellepoint, originally left out of the route (Bogart, 1997). In San Francisco, old horse streetcars were converted into housing and formed the community of Cartown and even inspired a new type of housing architecture (Rhoads, 2000).   Expansion of the horse railway system was prominently notable in the United States compared to slower growth in Europe, where people called the technology the “American Railways” (Young, 2015). Which is ironic considering that the technology first appeared in Europe. Horse-drawn streetcars, and the rails they travelled on, began a process of redefining the meaning of city streets. This new definition would continue with the introduction of electric streetcars and automobiles (Young, 2015). Under this new understanding, the streets became “a place for mobility, diminishing the centrality of sociability, recreation, and other traditional street uses” (Young, 2015). The streets allowed for the connection of communities, in accordance with trends all over the United States, Omaha’s expansion was owed to the networks of its horse railway systems. Intense demand for reliable intracity transportation allowed the Omaha Horse Railway Company to expand quickly. Homes popped up along the track lines, extending far out from downtown Omaha. However, as the city continued to grow, horse-drawn streetcars proved too slow from transporting people from the “streetcar suburbs” to their employer in the city. In 1887, the <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/items/show/2">electric cable car</a> was introduced by the Cable Tramway Company. Conflicts soon emerged between the two companies over operations and competition for tracks. Eventually the Omaha Horse Railway Company and the Cable Tramway Company merged to form the Omaha Street Railway Company in 1887 (Fletcher, n.d). With streetcars now operating completely on electric motors, which made the cars heavier, new tracks were required. Originally, 25-pounds “T” rails were laid for the horse tracks. After the merger and switch to electric, 45-pounds steel girder rails were required to accommodate the new cars (Thomson, 2014). The switch to electric streetcars marked and end to organic machines, horse-power now became horse-powered. Given this myriad of environmental, health, financial issues facing horse-drawn transportation, it might seem that a transition toward electric cable cars was inevitable. This was not the case, however, in Benson, Nebraska. Omaha continued to grow between 1870 and 1900, and the suburban community of Benson was slowly on the rise. Seeing the success of the Omaha cable cars, the community established the Benson Motor Company in 1886, with cars pulled by steam-engines (Savage & Bell, 1894). The tracks ran on North 40th Street and Cuming Street, then connected to North 42nd and Hamilton, and finally following Military Road to North 58th Street (Fletcher, n.d). However, since most residents were still farmers, the loud noise proved to be a disturbance to the residents. The city soon declared it a nuisance and the company were forced to abandon their steam-powered engines and use horses to pull their cars (Savage and Bell, 1894). The implementation of the horse-drawn streetcars had profound influence in the growth of the central city and linked it with suburban areas. Though operating for only a couple of years, it inspired new transportation innovations to connect the central city and its suburbs to nearby rural communities with a fast, frequent service not otherwise available before. This was evident when the City of Omaha annexed Benson on July 29th, 1917 (Persigehl, 2017). Horse drawn infrastructure laid the foundation in many American cities by the late 19th century for what was needed to establish a “cleaner”, more financially and energetically efficient mode of transit found in electric railway systems. Despite their difference in power methodology, horse-drawn, and electric streetcars served a common purpose - to enable to expansion of the growing communities in which they served, speeding up suburbanization and the settling of surrounding natural landscapes. Urbanization was further developed through surrounding suburbanization and has both directly and indirectly impacted the Omaha area’s once natural landscape through road paving, construction of housing, businesses and infrastructure, and the collective pollution consequences coming as a result of consolidated human occupation and activity. Urbanization in Omaha was evident in the growth of the city between 1860 and 1900. Other cities around the world also saw a growth in their populations starting in the 1860s, when the horse railway system was expanding (Rees, 2016). Urbanization has contributed greatly to the Anthropocene as it required more extraction of natural resources to feed a growing, industrialized city. Materials were needed to build the horse railway lines and for horse care. Indirectly, through its facilitation of urbanization, materials were also needed to construct more homes and other amenities associated with a growing city (Awasthi, 1999). Perhaps the starkest impact associated with the Anthropocene, is the changing of the natural landscape. Grasslands and forests were soon replaced by gridded neighborhoods and paved lines connecting communities and cities (Rees, 2016). These railways, both horse-drawn and eventually electric-powered, extended the reach of the city and allowed it to grow into what it is known as today—without these developments, growth may not have been seen until the invention, public access, and affordability of the automobile in the early 20th century. Accelerating the rate of suburbanization, the Omaha Horse Railway company also played a significant role in enabling the city’s contribution to worldwide pollution collectively derived from the necessity to transport, house, feed and accommodate growing populations. It is through this perspective that we understand how the intermediary method of human transport did more than get people home from work—it is one of many roots that ground the premise of worldwide geological and environmental scars inflicted by humankind. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kaden Cloud Zak Phosri Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived “A Statement of Facts―In Relation to the Origins, Progress and Prospect of the New York and Harlem Railroad Company.” The Evening Post. (1833, Feb 21). Retrieved from <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19998189/harlem_railroad_pt_1/">https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19998189/harlem_railroad_pt_1/</a> Awasthi, Aruna. (1999). “Environmental Degradation: A Case Study of Railways and Deforestation in India in The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 60, 572-581. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/44144125">http://www.jstor.org/stable/44144125</a> Bogart, Charles H. (1997). “Frankfort’s Streetcars and Interurbans: The Bluegrass Route.” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 95(4):395-424. Retrieved from  <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/23383835">http://www.jstor.org/stable/23383835</a>. Fletcher, Adam. n.d. “26th and Lake Street Maintenance Shop.” North Omaha History. Retrieved from https://northomahahistory.com/2016/09/10/26th-and-lake-streetcar-barn/ Fletcher, Adam. n.d. “Benson Motor Company.” North Omaha History. Retrieved from https://northomahahistory.com/2017/03/04/benson-motor-company/ Hendee, David. (2015). “1865 in Omaha: A Momentous Year.” Omaha World-Herald. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.omaha.com/special_sections/in-omaha-a-momentous-year/article_72e950df-ec1f-53ae-b383-8ef47b8241fc.html">https://www.omaha.com/special_sections/in-omaha-a-momentous-year/article_72e950df-ec1f-53ae-b383-8ef47b8241fc.html</a>.   Martin, Charles W. (1978). “Omaha in 1868-1869: Selections from the Letters of Joseph Barker,” Nebraska History. 59: 501-524. McKee, Jim. (2014, Apr 6). “Horse Cars and Street Railway.” Retrieved from <a href="https://journalstar.com/news/local/jim-mckee-horse-cars-and-street-railways/article_09fc3864-c8f7-5f87-b033-ede68e26791f.html">https://journalstar.com/news/local/jim-mckee-horse-cars-and-street-railways/article_09fc3864-c8f7-5f87-b033-ede68e26791f.html</a> McShane, Clay. “Transforming the Use of Urban Space: a Look at the Revolution in Street Pavements, 1880-1924.” Journal of Urban History, 1979, journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/009614427900500302?casa_token=_o0SYBpEa3gAAAAA:hXBVV7cIMPYnoDn4moKb5D2ryMj-HAWFwWgpOlk0RHeDwnQZIku-LceZMkjesKtvNZzFQIp4c1QK. McShane, Clay and Joel A. Tarr. (2007). The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.   Mohl, Raymond A. (1997). The Making of Urban America (2nd edition). Lanham, MD: SR Books. Morris, E. (2007). From Horse Power to Horsepower. ACCESS Magazine, 1(30). Retrieved from <a href="https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt6sm968t2/qt6sm968t2.pdf">https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt6sm968t2/qt6sm968t2.pdf</a>. Nebraska State Data Center, Center for Public Affairs Research, University of Nebraska at Omaha, and U.S Bureau of the Census. (2010). “Population of Nebraska Incorporated Places, 1860 to 1920.” Retrieved from <a href="https://opportunity.nebraska.gov/files/research/stathand/bsect5a.htm">https://opportunity.nebraska.gov/files/research/stathand/bsect5a.htm</a> Persigehl, Linda. (2017). “Battle for Benson: The 100th Anniversary of its Annexation.” Omaha Magazine. Retrieved from <a href="http://omahamagazine.com/articles/battle-for-benson/">http://omahamagazine.com/articles/battle-for-benson/</a> Rees, Jonathan. (2016). “Industrialization and Urbanization in the United States, 1880-1929.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Retrieved from <a href="http://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-327">http://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-327</a> Rhoads, William B. (2000). “The Machine in the Garden: The trolley Cottage as Romantic Artifact.” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture. 8:17-32. Retrieved from  <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3514405">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3514405</a>    Roberts, G. K., & Steadman, P. (1999). American Cities & Technology: Wilderness to Wired City. New York, NY: Routledge. Savage, James W. and John T. Bell. (1894). History of the City of Omaha Nebraska. NYC, NY: Nunsell & Company. Thavenet, Dennis. “A History of Omaha Public Transportation.” 1960, digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/1267. “The Horse Distemper.” (1872, Oct 26) Retrieved from <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1872/10/26/83212943.pdf">https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1872/10/26/83212943.pdf</a> Thomas, Doug. (2017, Dec 11). “Omaha’s Once-Sprawling Streetcar System Now Lives Only In Memory.” Retrived from <a href="https://www.omaha.com/living/omaha-s-once-sprawling-streetcar-system-now-lives-only-in/article_faf152c0-da05-11e7-b045-2f378c682fd5.html">https://www.omaha.com/living/omaha-s-once-sprawling-streetcar-system-now-lives-only-in/article_faf152c0-da05-11e7-b045-2f378c682fd5.html</a> Thompson, Joe. (2014). “Omaha Street Railway History - 1909 News Advertisements by William H. Hodge.” Cable Car Guy. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccomaha.html">http://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccomaha.html</a> Young, Jay. (2015). “Infrastructure: Mass Transit in 19th- and 20th-Century Urban America.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Retrieved from <a href="http://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-28">http://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-28</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Horse Railway Organic Machine Suburban Development https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/87df9f7bf92cfc1cedeec88c6c2fac25.jpg 4344c0b4d7c5d46a149539929e450029 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eric Crouch Commemorative Football Subject The topic of the resource The Eric Crouch Husker commemorative football housed in the Durham museum. This is a symbol of Husker football fandom and the impacts that sports fandom has on the environment Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/f0aed36c61c18447fea6772d86e04cc7.jpg 7cc6fee1e18c67e334546c955b6455ff Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eric Crouch Commemorative Football Subject The topic of the resource The Eric Crouch Husker commemorative football housed in the Durham museum. This is a symbol of Husker football fandom and the impacts that sports fandom has on the environment Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/d7775a82a8b00f024362d0cd9499d344.jpg 12bffd66c33bd78284e1b024df4714cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eric Crouch Commemorative Football Subject The topic of the resource The Eric Crouch Husker commemorative football housed in the Durham museum. This is a symbol of Husker football fandom and the impacts that sports fandom has on the environment Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Durham Museum Permanent Collection Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Living in a World of Our Own Making Subject The topic of the resource <a href="http://www.igbp.net/images/18.950c2fa1495db7081ebd1/1421396650502/GreatAcceleration2015igbpsrclowres.jpg" title="IGBP - The Great Acceleration Dashboard" target="_blank">The Great Acceleration</a> <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4721/40562555551_972c132773_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Description An account of the resource The Anthropocene means “The Age of Humans,” but what does it mean to live in a world of our own making? Humanity has flourished in past two centuries. Two thirds of every person ever born lived between 1945 and today. Scientists call this era of expanding population, economic development, and environmental impact the “Great Acceleration.” People are now more numerous and powerful than ever before. Mining moves more rocks and soils than all of the worlds rivers combined. Artificial fertilizers have doubled the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in our soils. Plastics can now be found on mountain tops and the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Paradoxically, many of the most profound changes to global environments pass virtually unnoticed. Nuclear fallout, for instance, is invisible to the naked eye, but radioactive evidence of cold war weapons tests remains in soils around the world. Until recently, lead was one of the most common materials in industrial use. It was used to seal our foods, paint our homes, and power our cars. Lead is toxic, especially for children. Although invisible, lead is now in our soils, in our cities, and even in our blood. By contrast, concrete is virtually everywhere, yet we rarely think about it. We drive on it, work in it, and the foundations of this very museum are built using it. More than half of the concrete ever produced was manufactured between 1995-2015. Concrete requires enormous energy to mine, transport, and produce. These consequences are as invisible to us as the material is abundant. As you finish your journey through the exhibit, consider how many other “invisible” materials influence our lives and connect us to the global environment. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Husker Football Subject The topic of the resource Sports and sport fandom have played a major role in US and global history. Fandom produces a bond between people in communities, but it also produces environmental impacts. This commemorative Husker football is an artifact of Nebraska fandom. Omaha has a history of producing great athletes, including Eric Crouch, a quarterback for the University of Nebraska between 1998 and 2001. The large crowds typical of Power 5 collegiate football require thousands of megawatts of energy used to run the stadiums. This along with the negative impacts of fans traveling to games are all examples of how sports culture affects the environment. In this sense, this Husker football is an important artifact that connects the passionate football community of Nebraska to the Anthropocene. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chris Aleti Brody Methven Description An account of the resource Sport fandom is a universal language that unite communities, evoking passionate response among its participants. In Nebraska, college football is king. On game day, upwards of 90,000 people attend home games. It is not unfair to imagine that most fans pay little attention to the environmental impacts of their sport. Historians have studied the impacts of sports and its importance to different cultures. The sports fandom culture it creates has a major impact on the Anthropocene. Global sport fandom has become a phenomenon, and its expansion since the mid-1900s has had profound environmental effects. The sport of football has a significant environmental impact in the anthropocene through the waste it creates, the ecosystems it alters, and its overall carbon footprint it generates. The significance of sports fandom as a global cultural phenomenon is only matched by its environmental significance in the Anthropocene. This Nebraska Huskers commemorative football, housed in the Durham Museum lists the career awards and achievements of Eric Crouch. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/208">Figure I</a> and <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/210">II</a>) Eric Crouch is not only relevant in terms of his importance in the history of Husker football, but he is relevant in the history of the city of Omaha, as this is his hometown. Crouch grew up as the son of a single mother who was a medical technician by day and a waitress by night in Omaha (Lapointe, 2001). One of his biggest mentors was a Creighton faculty member, Dr. Jim Brown, who was a radiologist (Lapointe, 2001). Crouch went on to become a very well-known and successful Husker football player, known by Husker fans for two major scoring plays in his Junior season. One being a 95-yard touchdown scramble, the other being a trick play against Oklahoma to seal what was a close game (Lapointe, 2001). Being from Omaha, Crouch was a fan favorite and ties Omaha into Husker football history. College football fandom feeds from and builds upon cultural and social norms that support a team. (Satterfield and Godfrey 2011). Like many sports cultures around the world, football culture operates through a set of rules. Rules such as showing loyalty on game days by wearing school colors and team jerseys (Satterfield and Godfrey 2011). A community develops that defines itself by the wins and losses of its team. The success of the team’s performance affects the behavior of the community. A successful team is more likely to draw in more supporters and increase their fanbase. The connection between the team and the community is especially strong in a small college town (Satterfield and Godfrey 2011). The importance of college football to Nebraskans is amplified by the absence of professional sports teams in the state. The lack of competition among other sports and a large student population results in attendances regularly over 90,000 for Nebraska home games (Satterfield and Godfrey 2011). Nebraska football fandom in particular has been found to not be primarily rooted in the team’s success, or its geographic location, or even a fan’s association with the university. Rather, their fandom and attachment to the Husker football team is due to what it stands for. The team stands for the state of Nebraska and what Husker fans believe to be their way of life or set principles that represent the state’s dominant agrarian culture. As a result, Husker fans tend to equate their fandom of the football team to being part of what it means to be a Nebraskan (Earnheardt et al, 2013). The historic growth of Nebraska football fandom is most clearly expressed in the construction and expansion of Memorial Stadium. <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/211">Figure III</a> shows the initial construction of the Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1923. The stadium was built to replace Nebraska Field which previously hosted all Husker home games. The construction of buildings by Nebraska Field reduced its seating capacity. As Nebraska’s fan base grew in popularity, a new stadium with more seating arrangements were required (“Memorial Stadium” 2005). (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/213">Figure IV</a>) The use of a horse drawn plow alters the soil and the cutting down of trees to clear the area for construction also changes the landscape and the ecosystem. The altering of the ecosystem can result in loss of many habitats for the local fauna. The construction of the stadium also contributes to urbanization and the subsequent loss of farmland. College football had its roots in America in the late 18th century. Schools in the Northeast each had a different version of football (PFRA). The first official college football game wasn’t until 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers. This game attracted about a hundred supporters cheering on their team despite the cold, windy conditions (PFRA). The game soon spread to other ivy league schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. The popularity of the game was noticed by colleges around the nation and many other schools began to start programs dedicated to football (PFRA). College football has managed to retain its passionate fanbase that initially made it popular. A survey from September 2, 2007 indicates that college football is the third most popular sport after professional football and baseball with thirteen percent of the sample (PR Newswire 2007). This indicates that even after the introduction of new sports such as basketball and soccer, college football has managed to retain its popularity among the public. By the 2000s, college football transformed into a big business. Football games around the nation recorded an attendance of 36 million over the course of 129 games in the NCAA Division I-FBS subdivision with an average of 42,000 spectators for each game (NCAA 2017). (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/214">Figure V</a>) NCAA Division I football also recorded a median revenue of $63 million in 2015 (NCAA 2016). These figures are also expected to increase every year. The increasing demand led to many stadiums expanding their capacity. For example, Texas A&M spent an incredible $485 million to expand their stadium (Patterson 2018). The expansion projects are designed to increase seating capacity and provide more facilities for the fans. The new stadium also provides increased facilities to players and in hopes of attracting new recruits. Many colleges rely on their football programs as their main source of revenue (Patterson 2018). Football, ranging from high school to the professional level, has become a billion-dollar industry (Massengil 2016). This industry provides entertainment and jobs for thousands of people across the nation. Historian Taylor Rhodes argues that college sports are especially significant in geographically isolated cities like Lincoln, Nebraska. These cities experience a significant increase in employment and tax revenues from hosting college football games (Rhodes 2013). Major sporting events such as the NFL Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the FIFA World Cup promise fame and fortune to host cities (Warren 2017). This large economic benefit results in the negative environmental impacts being overlooked (Massengil 2016). One negative impact is air pollution. Environmental scientist Tanushree Dutta and colleagues explain that large scale assemblies of people gathering in confined spaces can have significant impacts on the local air chemistry due to human emissions of volatile organics (Dutta et al, 2016). These variations in air quality in such a small scale can be studied by quantifying fingerprint volatile organic compounds such as acetone, toluene, and isoprene. All of these can be found in large scale assemblies of people such as concerts, movie screenings, and of course sporting events such as the Olympic or the FIFA World Cup (Dutta et al, 2016). During the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, average attendance of over 50,000 fans per game totaled more than 3.4 million people during the whole event (Dutta et al, 2016). Large scale attendance numbers aren’t just restricted to events such as the Olympics and the World Cup but can also be seen on local scales as well. Nebraska Cornhusker football games are just one of many examples of this local scale gatherings in the United States. Roughly 90,000 people attended Husker football games on game days in Lincoln, NE in 2016 (KETV, 2016). Overall, 631,000 fans total attended home games that season, and over 1 million fans total attended home and away games (KETV, 2016). The sheer number of fans that attend these sports teams makes sense as to why teams nationally and globally would expand and further construct their stadiums to meet these capacities. This expansion of stadiums can relate back to the environmental impacts of gameday. Stadiums produce significant waste during game days. (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/admin/files/show/215">Figure VI</a>) In addition to the waste generated, stadiums also use up a great amount of energy. For example, the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis was estimated to have consumed 15,000 megawatt hours of electricity (Massengil 2016). This is enough electricity to power 1,400 homes across the nation for an entire year. In addition to the energy consumption by the stadium itself, 111.3 million viewers consumed more electricity to watch the game (Massengil 2016). The carbon emissions that result from game day are also a significant concern. Carbon emissions are a major proponent of climate change. A study conducted by researchers at Cardiff University in the U.K. in 2007 examined the ecological footprint of an FA Cup Final, the premier event of English domestic soccer. The footprint included traveling energy consumption, food and drinks consumed at the end, and the stadium infrastructure. The results showed that the estimated event footprint was about 3000 global hectares with more than half comprising of travel energy consumption (Collins et al, 2009). The footprint estimate would be similar to a major football bowl game in the United States. Construction projects, which include sports stadiums, consume 60 % of the nation’s raw materials annually (Grant, 2014). The construction projects failed to use local or recycled product that could reduce their environmental impact addresses Thomas Grant Jr. (Gant, 2014). The construction and personal vehicle of stadiums contribute to air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. This was evident after the construction of the new Yankee stadium which significantly increased air pollution in an already congested part of New York City (Porteshawyer 2009). Fandom is also expressed in travel. In the post-realignment era in Division I sports, teams of all sports (not just football) have had to travel larger distances due to a growing geographical footprint of these conferences. One way that college football in the United States has had an effect on the environment in terms of energy used on game days can be seen when the NCAA Division I athletic conferences underwent conference realignments. Conferences such as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), the Big Ten Conference (B1G), the Big 12 Conference, the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12), and the Southeastern Conference (SEC) make up what is known as the Power 5 Conferences in division I college football (Farley et al, 2017). What Farley and his colleagues found during their study was that sports do, in fact, have a major impact on the environment. In almost every case in their study, the expansion of the Power 5 Conferences caused average emissions to rise. The only conference that did not rise in emissions was the one that already had the largest average emissions per game and highest total emissions, the Pac-12 Conference (Farley et al, 2017). While colleges have focused more attention on the sustainability of their campuses and at stadiums, travel-related environmental impacts have risen (Farley et al, 2017). This problem of transportation related emissions on game days can also be seen in Husker football, as many fans travel from Omaha to Lincoln and back in their cars to attend these home games. For their first home game in 2018, stadium officials expected a turnout of 100,000 with thousands driving from Omaha to attend the game (Patterson 2018). The large number of commuters impacts the transportation related emissions. The impact of sport fandom occurs globally and is not just restricted to America. The Olympics is an event that unites sports fans worldwide. It can also lead to environmental problems for the host country. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil hosted the summer Olympics in 2016. This was an exciting venture for the city, but it also led to many environmental concerns. This included the 3.6 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted during the duration of the event (Frontier 2016). In addition to this, there was an estimated 17,000 tons of waste produced, 23,500 liters of fuel consumed, along with almost 30,000 gigawatts of electricity used throughout the Olympics (Frontier 2016). The environmental impacts of global sport fandom such as carbon dioxide emissions and waste produced have lasting impacts on the anthropocene. To avoid such traffic congestion, there was once even an attempted ban of a football stadium in New York City in 2004. Groups such as the Straphangers Campaign and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign were arguing that the city’s environmental review underestimated the number of fans that would travel to the stadium on the West side of New York on game days via cars or taxis. The groups argued that this would result in traffic congestion and pollution in a neighborhood that already had problems in both of those areas (Bagli, 2004). The review estimated that anywhere between 68 and 75 percent of the fans would travel to games by foot, but they were mistaken. The actual percentage of fans that travel on foot ranges from 52 percent at Pacific Bell Stadium in San Francisco, to 17 percent at Shea Stadium in Queens (Bagli, 2004). A reason for choosing car travel over other methods was explained by Robert Paaswell, director of the University Transportation Research Center at City College. He said that going to a football game is considered, “leisure travel, not business travel, so people don't have to travel by transit. They go with friends, go out for lunch or for beers afterward. You want to get there early, and you don't want to deal with a fixed schedule. A car is the most attractive way to go” (Bagli, 2004). This incident is yet another example of the concerns of traffic congestion and air pollution that can be seen on football game days. Despite all of the negative impacts that can be seen from football game days, or mass sporting events in general, there is still some positive things students and fans can do to try and make these events greener. According to Kristen Domonell, successful efforts at campuses across the country include: solar arrays at 10 sporting facilities at Arizona State University, wind turbines that supply 30% of the power to North Texas University’s football stadium and nearby buildings, and the switch to all compostable or recyclable concession packaging at the University of Washington’s Husky Stadium (Domonell, 2013). If more universities, including the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Cornhuskers, would be able to implement efforts such as these, then it would help cut down the environmental effects that are seen on game days. The sport of football brings joy to millions of people across the nation. While we are celebrating a victory or enjoying the unity of supporting a team, we must remember the environmental effects caused by football and other major sports and work to address them. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Collins, Andrea, Calvin Jones, and Max Munday. "Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Mega Sporting Events: Two Options?" Tourism Management 30, no. 6 (2009): 828-37. Accessed November 7, 2018.  KETV. "Nebraska Football Team Ranks in Top 10 in Average Attendance in 2016." Lapointe, Joe. 2001. “FOOTBALL; Crouch Has Matured Beyond His 23 Years”. New York Times, December 28 Memorial Stadium Construction June 30 2006. In Huskers.com. Accessed October 9,<a href="http://www.huskers.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&PALBID=105"> http://www.huskers.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&PALBID=105</a>. Memorial Stadium Picture after a Nebraska Touchdown. In Huskers.com. Accessed October 9, 2018. <a href="http://www.huskers.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&PALBID=105">http://www.huskers.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&PALBID=105</a>.  "2017 Football Attendance." NCAA. 2017. Accessed December 13, 2018. <a href="http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2017.pdf">http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2017.pdf</a>.  "Revenues and Expenses." NCAA. 2016. Accessed December 13, 2018. <a href="http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/D1REVEXP2015.pdf">http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/D1REVEXP2015.pdf</a>  Construction on Memorial Stadium took place during the summer of 1923. In Huskers.com. Accessed October 9, 2018.<a href="http://www.huskers.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&PALBID=105">http://www.huskers.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&PALBID=105</a> Patterson, Thom. "Eye-popping College Football Stadium Pricetags." CNN. September 28, 2018. Accessed December 14, 2018. "While Still the Nation's Favorite Sport, Professional Football Drops in Popularity." Razor Tie Artery Foundation Announce New Joint Venture Recordings | Razor & Tie. Accessed December 13, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20070902220050/http://sev.prnewswire.com:80/sports/20070109/NYTU17309012007-1.html. Bagli, Charles V. 2004. “Environmental Review Stirs Doubt About Stadium Plan.” New York Times, December 22.   Collins, Andrea, Andrew Flynn, Max Munday, and Annette Roberts. 2007. “Assessing the Environmental Consequences of Major Sporting Events: The 2003/04 FA Cup Final.” Urban Studies (Routledge) 44 (3): 457–76. <a href="https://login.cuhsl.creighton.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=24827727&site=ehost-live"></a>  Dutta, Tanushree, Ki-Hyun Kim, Minori Uchimiya, Pawan Kumar, Subhasish Das, Satya Sundar Bhattacharya, and Jan Szulejko. 2016. “The Micro-Environmental Impact of Volatile Organic Compound Emissions from Large-Scale Assemblies of People in a Confined Space.” Environmental Research 151 (November): 304–12. Domonell, Kristen. 2013. “Sustainable Game Days.” University Business 16 (10): 16. Earnheardt, A. C., Haridakis, P. M., & Hugenberg, B. S. (2013). Sports fans, identity, and socialization exploring the fandemonium. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Farley, Bradley, Lisa M. DeChano-Cook, and Lucius F. Hallett IV. 2017. “Environmental Impact of Power Five Conference Realignment.” Geographical Bulletin 58 (2): 93–106. Frontier. "The Environmental Impact Of The Olympics." HuffPost UK. August 19, 2017. Accessed December 14, 2018. Grant, Thomas, Jr. "Chapter 2. Impact Studies and Other Quantitative Analyses: Inconclusive Conclusions." The Sports Franchise Game 25, no. 1 (January 1, 2014). Accessed October 9, 2018. doi:10.9783/9780812209150.13.  Massengill, Mitchell. "Tackling Football's Environmental Impact." Energy and Environmental Policy 2016. November 28, 2016. Accessed October 10, 2018. "Memorial Stadium." UNL Historic Buildings - Burnett Hall. Accessed December 13, 2018. <a href="http://historicbuildings.unl.edu/building.php?b=38">http://historicbuildings.unl.edu/building.php?b=38</a>. Patterson, Thom. "Eye-popping College Football Stadium Pricetags." CNN. September 28, 2018. Accessed December 14, 2018.   Porteshawver, Alex. "Green Sports Facilities: Why Adopting New Green-Building Policies Will Improve the Environment and the Community." Marquette Sports Law Review20, no. 1 (2009).  PFRA Research. "No Christian End! The Beginnings of Football in America." Professional Football Researchers Association. Accessed December 13, 2018. http://www.profootballresearchers.com/articles/No_Christian_End.pdf. Rhodes, M. Taylor, 2013. "Pigskin, Tailgating and Pollution: Estimating the Environmental Impacts of Sporting Events," UNCG Economics Working Papers 13-19, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics. Satterfield, J., & Godfrey, M. (2010). The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Football: A Metaphorical,Symbolic and Ritualistic Community Event. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1425"></a>  Rhodes, Taylor. "Pigskin, Tailgating and Pollution: Estimating the Environmental Impacts of Sporting Events." October 21, 2013. Accessed November 7, 2018. http://faculty.lawrence.edu/rhodesm/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/10/draft_v48_environ_jmp_10_2013.pdf. Warren, Gina. "Big Sports Events Have Big Environmental Footprints. Could Social Licenses To Operate Help?" Forbes. December 11, 2017. Construction Fandom Greenhouse Gasses Lincoln https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/1d618972d238f08b89a6d9d495f576ee.png 4bccf373fddb74c923bd5eb844a0d16e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Omaha International Exhibition Pamphlet Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Permanent Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/bda9c1fbb8bc5b3c33bd40f7909b8c2d.png 9d97d4d9a2e955c8d6b32657a14e6312 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Trans-Mississippi Exposition Description An account of the resource Looking west down the Grand Court at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska. A canal runs down the middle of the court with buildings on either side. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/0269eb30ae87ec476f0f0a2fc64251b9.png d2f67107f2e954c5cebf269d6d3ee3c3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fine Arts Building Description An account of the resource A building with two domes on it. A gondola is on the lagoon in front of it. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/35c1a9e0821afb4829a0f07331b8eedb.png b96afb140eb0587ee54cb394c9e42371 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Trans-Mississippi Exposition Description An account of the resource The Agriculture Building stands near the water at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. The building is white with arched windows and has flags on the top. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/ef72a0864fad31dbfd2c834a0912cfdc.png 95c1eac7df60e4f2551b910f270d92c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Trans-Mississippi Exposition Description An account of the resource The Government Building stands at the West end of the Grand Court at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. The building has a gold dome and statues on top of it. LRB Personal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/c1e985536cb6ba1d828568054e8ba142.png 772081ffb2fc687262163ef005082b25 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Court at Night Description An account of the resource A lagoon with buildings surrounding it at night. Photograph by Rinehart. Located in Omaha, Nebraska. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive http://durhammuseum.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15426coll1/id/5712/rec/13 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/d16353fc4efae97ad47dc3269d6e06a3.png fee0ee30b4ef7fc478cf740d8442a187 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Trans Mississippi Exposition Description An account of the resource courtyard of Fine Arts Building Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive http://durhammuseum.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15426coll1/id/5552/rec/6 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1898 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/ae9259fa9c550b268f3fe3a1d053911d.png 30e6cf9cfd774de2a8a833c76feb98f2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Estimates of number of farms (circles with solid line) and mean farm size (triangles with dashed line) in Nebraska, 1870–2002. Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Hiller, Tim L., Larkin A. Powell, Tim D. McCoy, and Jeffrey J. Lusk. "Long-Term Agricultural Land-Use Trends in Nebraska, 1866-2007." Great Plains Research 19 (2009): 225-237. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Consumer Revolutions Subject The topic of the resource Global Capitalism <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4758/39538672694_da9d00eca7_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Butter-Nut Coffee Advertisement, Durham Photo Archive Description An account of the resource Globalization has brought the world to our doorstep. Expanding networks of trade bring goods from every corner of the world to our homes in Omaha. Although many of us associate globalization with the very recent past, those connections have a long history. This section of the exhibit takes us from the early history of globalization to the present and shows how our consumer decisions transformed economic and environmental relationships around the world. The first era of globalization dawned in the late sixteenth century when the Spanish Empire created the first global currency. The Spanish used gold and silver mined by indigenous peoples in Bolivia to trade for goods in China. Silver coins greased the wheels of early globalization and connected American mines, to tea fields in China, to the markets of Europe. Expanding wealth and power eventually opened up foreign landscapes to American use as well. By the nineteenth century, consumer networks allowed families in Omaha to consume tropical goods like coffee. Today, multinational corporations like ConAgra dominate food production. They use resources from every type of environment and ship their products globally. Consumer revolutions accelerated after the Second World War. Home appliances like televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines promised convenience and an increased quality of life, but new technologies sometimes produced unexpected environmental consequences. These objects remind us that modern consumerism was part of a long history of globalization that transformed global environments. Many of us still use objects like these on a daily basis. As you look through this section, ask yourself how many goods you have used or consumed today are connected in some way to foreign landscapes. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Trans-Mississippi Exposition Subject The topic of the resource The Trans-Mississippi Exposition was a World’s Fair hosted in Omaha in 1898. This pamphlet described the attractions and new technological developments on display. Sponsors hoped the fair would boost the local economy and encourage settlement in unclaimed Western lands. People could then use those natural resources as a source for profit. The fair’s fantastic Renaissance-style buildings showed this potential for success, but they only existed for one year. Planners constructed buildings with cheap materials and destroyed them after the fair ended. No buildings from the fair remain today. The fair, and this artifact, are a symbol of this frontier sensibility. People treated the environment in the same way: using resources until they were not profitable, and then moving on. This exploitation of nature for profit is a common theme of the Anthropocene. Description An account of the resource “The mighty West affords striking evidences of the splendid achievements and possibilities of our people,” remarked President William McKinley. “It is a matchless tribute to the energy and endurance of the pioneer, while its vast agricultural development, its progress in manufactures, its advancement in the arts and sciences, and in all departments of education and endeavor, have been inestimable contributions to the civilization and wealth of the world.” Few times in the prior history of America did it possess the opportunity to demonstrate its affluence and ingenuity as it did with the platform of World’s Fairs and Expositions in the late 19th century. Catalyzed by the synthesis of resource and resourcefulness, industry elevated America on the new global capitalist stage. Greater than anticipated, the then-untamed West possessed a wealth of resources for cultivation and extraction alike. The success afforded the majority of the nation as a result of its Western backbone led to many celebrations of the West in the form of lavish World’s Fairs, the prime model being Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. However successful the West had appeared, in truth the West’s ability to support the new industrial America was an illusion. The West’s extreme prosperity came at the cost of an ever-accelerating requirement for a finite amount of new land: over-commodifying the land had exhausted its ability to produce. The same boom and bust mirrored in the years to come in the lesser Western fairs and expositions: demonstrating illusive staying power and affluence, but in truth embodying overexploitation and their promises preying on the hopeful. The 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition exists as a metaphor for the boom-and-bust nature of capitalism in the developing West. All facets of the exposition illustrated these cyclic patterns, ranging from the physical construction and demolition of the exposition buildings to its impact on the local economy. Boom-and-bust financial cycles were fundamental and recurrent phenomena in capitalist economies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since the 1970s, environmental historians have critiqued the predominant economic interpretation of these cycles, emphasizing their connections to western expansion. A “capitalist ethos” reframed nature as resource and incentivized the utilization of Western resource frontiers for financial gain. Omaha’s economic success in the 1890s reflected in the exposition’s ability to market the untamed Western land purely as substances ready for new settlers to exploit. This capitalist ethos originated from the idea that humans are separate from nature, a mindset that resonated throughout the exposition, what Jason Moore refers to as Cartesian dualism that prevails in practice. This rejection of ties with the natural environment enabled drastic overexploitation, without consideration for future viability. The Omaha Trans-Mississippi International Exposition represented the cyclic pattern of success and decline caused by many similar dualisms, evidenced in the exposition’s physical construction as well as its fluctuating economic outcomes. The Omaha 1898 International Exposition pamphlet (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/1d618972d238f08b89a6d9d495f576ee.png">Figure 1</a>) was a commemorative item and a contemporary guide for attendees of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition. It was distributed beginning in June during the 1898 festival and provided 32 pages of detailed exhibit coverage. It supplied visitors with necessary information regarding available amenities and transportation around Omaha, a comprehensive exhibit guide, and details about the available diversions, including carnivalesque swordsmen, mazes, and funhouses. The pamphlet first describes the layout of the exposition as a guide for navigation. The exposition grounds consisted of Renaissance-style buildings surrounding a lagoon (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/bda9c1fbb8bc5b3c33bd40f7909b8c2d.png">Figure 3</a>). Nearly half the pamphlet consisted of photographs of these architectural installations. The classical, palatial aesthetic of the Omaha Exhibition was proudly lauded, illustrating the grandeur of the fair. The pamphlet enumerates the exhibits housed within each of the state buildings, as well as exhibits documenting substantial achievements. Specific care is taken describing the special exhibits. The government exhibit (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/ef72a0864fad31dbfd2c834a0912cfdc.png">Figure 4</a>) displayed exotic artifacts, such as a draft of the Declaration of Independence, and featured military and educational advancements that promoted imperialist sentiments. The Indian Exhibit, when juxtaposed with the exposition’s impressive shows of classical architecture, technology, and material wealth, emphasized the progress of colonialism. Other major exhibits, such as the Agriculture (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/35c1a9e0821afb4829a0f07331b8eedb.png">Figure 5</a>), Electricity, and Machinery buildings, presented the technological advancements and the resources wrought by these newfound processes in order to glorify the technological progress and economic opportunity in the West. The Exposition celebrated western technology and colonial progress, and their relationship to economic opportunity, though the fair itself was an opportunity for financial gain. Ironically, this fair celebrating western progress originated when the entire nation was recovering from the Financial Panic of 1893. Western states were disproportionately impacted by the panic and therefore especially determined to revitalize their economic prospects. Several macroeconomic problems initiated the beginning of an economic recession; however, the addition of unexpected Western crop failures pushed a common depression into a financial panic. These agricultural shocks were most prevalent in the Western and North Central states, including Nebraska, which caused bank failures that were strongly concentrated in Western states. National and Eastern banks, which were less influenced by the struggling Western agricultural markets, did not experience the same magnitude of the recession following the panic. However, rural banks depended on the success of nearby farms, so local and state banks in the West failed more frequently than in other regions. The Trans-Mississippi Exposition was a direct response to this economic disaster. Shortly after the recession, Omaha leaders determined that an exposition would successfully communicate the financial potential of the West to the rest of the nation and perhaps resurrect the economic stability in the region. The immense, unprecedented success of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 inspired several Western leaders to advocate similar projects in their respective cities. In 1894, Nebraskan delegates invited the Trans-Mississippi Congress, a group of men from Western states who promoted the commercial and material interests of their region, to host the next annual meeting in Omaha. After proposing the idea to the Congress in 1895, local Omaha businessmen successfully committed their city to host an exposition. The 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, also known as the Omaha World’s Fair, was one of forty international expositions that occurred during the “Golden Age of Fairs” from 1880-1910. The purpose of the Omaha World’s Fair was to exemplify the fertility and potential of Western farming and manufacturing as a definite pathway to financial success. The initial settlers already utilized the Western resources by growing crops and raising livestock, but many were still skeptical about adopting the pioneer lifestyle. The number of Nebraskan farms drastically increased from 1870-1890, but then growth and settlement stagnated through the 1890s following the agricultural failures from Panic of 1893. The development of new procedures and technologies provided a stronger promise of success for those moving West. William Jennings Bryan, the spokesman for the Nebraska committee of the Trans-Mississippi Congress, stated, “We believe that an exposition of all the products, industries and civilization of the States west of the Mississippi River, made at some central gateway where the world can behold the wonderful capabilities of these great wealth-producing States, would be of great value, not only to the Trans-Mississippi States, but to all the homeseekers in the world.” The planners hoped the exposition would directly combat the previous notion of the West as having low and unpredictable crop yields observed in the Panic of 1893. By projecting Western industrial and agricultural success to the rest of the nation, Omaha leaders sought to attract settlers to utilize the abundant resources in order to boost the local economy. The desire to project an image of the West’s success and appeal to potential settlers influenced the construction of the fairgrounds itself, though its execution occurred in a temporary and superficial manner. The goal of the architecture and landscaping was to produce the impression of a prosperous civilization: full of order and stability. A two-thousand foot-long lagoon designed to resemble Venetian canals hosted gondola rides as a whimsical form of transportation throughout the fair (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/0269eb30ae87ec476f0f0a2fc64251b9.png">Figure 6</a>) . Stately trees and lush grass plots lined artistically crafted walking paths, illuminated by electric lights (left) . Bright white building designed in Renaissance style reflected ancient Greek and Roman influences (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/d16353fc4efae97ad47dc3269d6e06a3.png">Figure 7</a>) and possessed strenuous constraints on color, scale and height. The strict application of artistic consistency and simplicity produced a harmonious environment to all attendees. Though the architecture created the appearance of success and stability, the exposition was merely an illusion of prosperity. The clean “White City” had no resemblance to the rough and untamed Trans-Mississippi wilderness that the exposition claimed to be the source of their economic success. The trees and shrubs were transplanted onto the original landscape to create the illusion of mature landscapes and fertile soil. The buildings were inherently temporary – constructed of plaster of Paris and horsehair – since they were only intended to survive the short duration of the 5-month exhibition and then destined for immediate demolition. The purpose of the Omaha World’s Fair was to initiate lasting economic growth following the financial panic, yet the founders had no intention of maintaining the environment or circumstances that would promote further financial prosperity following the exposition’s conclusion. Omaha did experience some transient financial benefits due to its successful execution of Trans-Mississippi Exposition. The fair attracted over 2.6 million visitors to the city of Omaha over the short five-month duration of the fair. Planners generated a sufficient profit to recoup the expenditure of $2.5 million to put on the Exposition. Nebraska’s government sponsored the Nebraska Exposition for $100,000, and leveraged its local resources to great effect, reaping significant short-term financial gains through its infrastructure and by prominently featuring its agricultural bounty . Visiting delegations, such as Illinois, also poured significant financial investments into the fair. The Illinois delegation regarded the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of paramount importance in its reports to the governor, since the fair would provide a stimulus for Chicagoan industry. Their expenditures were unequivocally reimbursed in returns from the committee and through advertising for Chicagoan business, affluence, and luxuries. All the delegations present at the Omaha Exposition were involved for profit, and Omaha took advantage of its position by exhibiting its hospitality and luxuries. Omaha’s immediate financial success was due to its ability to thoroughly project the inherent potential of Western land and resources throughout all aspects of the exposition. Despite its immediate financial benefits, Omaha did not experience its predicted, long-lasting settlement and success. The number of Nebraskan farms leveled off around 1890, which coincided with the period of agricultural failures in the Panic of 1893 (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/ae9259fa9c550b268f3fe3a1d053911d.png">Figure 8</a>). However, the number of farms did not increase following the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, as the stagnant trend following the recession continued. Population changes followed the same trend: dramatically increasing into the 1890s, stagnating during the decade, but failing to resume its upward climb following the close of the exposition (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/f8c204b4ecbc26c56b2f21c5d9cca249.png">Figure 9</a>). Though the fair experienced an initial financial boost, its predicted lasting effects were a bust. A capitalist ethos of commodified nature and endless growth permeated the Omaha World’s Fair. From this perspective, industrious westerners viewed capital as exogenous from nature. Nature was a commodity, and resources were simply reduced to substances to be used by humans. Jason Moore has argued that capitalism promoted this dualistic mindset, which ultimately separated humans from the environment with profound, global consequences. The objective and the execution of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition precisely illustrate this duality. Acquisition of capital was the motivating force for creating the exposition, and the event itself worked to convince other Americans to join the pioneering effort to use the Western resource frontier to create wealth. In a public address, Gurdon Wattles, the President of the Trans-Mississippi Association, explicitly named the goal of the exhibition to be an “advancement of commercial interests of the West, a demonstration of the marvelous resources of the great West.” The fair promoted the improvement of Western territories and in doing so, converted nature to resources to wealth, unclaimed wilderness to Western Civilization. Moore, in The Capitalocene, remarks that “capital… forms independently of the web of life, and intervenes… intruding in, and interrupting, a pre-given ‘traditional balance between humanity and nature.’” Moore states that capitalism depends on the frontier; although the centrality of capitalism is the commodification of everything, it is the frontier that underpins the acquisition of capital. More specifically, the methods to sustainably tame this untouched nature are disparate from the methods that Western settlers used and the age of World’s Fairs glorified. Although practices that promote profit maximization are logical from capitalist perspectives, they become illogical in ecological contexts. Capitalist production utilizes this separation of humans from nature to view natural resources as disposable commodities, in which the exploitation of these commodities results in profits, yet also often degrades the environment of its source. In ecological matters, this process occurs without feedback or regulation until overproduction or resource depletion occurs, where profitability declines and environmental destruction endures. The cycle of an expedited profit boom and following bust from the Trans-Mississippi exposition illustrates this cycle of exploitation and the resulting ecological impacts. The Omaha World’s Fair exceeded their goal of financial revitalization in the short duration, and therefore attempted to prolong their success. However, the bust arrived almost immediately following the closing of the fair. Although remnant funds from the exposition were intended for a new exposition, much of the board who had conducted the previous year’s Exposition were unwilling to accept the responsibility of a second Exposition. The novelty of the Trans-Mississippi grounds and image had lost its shine. After the physical fairgrounds structures had outlived their use and profitability, the buildings were hastily destroyed or removed from the North Omaha site. The majority of the demolished material shipped to Chicago by freight cars, but the plaster sculptures and exteriors of buildings were discarded into the emptied lagoon. The exposition physically transformed the North Omaha landscape for the purpose of temporary financial gain, but once the financial payoff began to decline, the fairgrounds were entirely trashed and forgotten with no remnants remaining. The extremely temporary lifespan between construction and demolition, and similarly the exposition’s investment and payoff, portrays the culmination of all societal, economic and environmental perspectives influencing the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. The inception of the exposition was financially motivated in response to the Financial Panic of 1893 in hopes of accruing wealth. In order to combat the recession, Western inhabitants utilized untouched Western resources as disposable substances for capital gain. The perspective of nature existing independent of humans originated from a capitalist ethos, which justified this exploitation of nature for quick financial gain. Likewise, the construction of the exposition fairgrounds mimicked the exploitation of the environment. The land of North Omaha transformed for the purpose of economic gain, and certainly not in a Lockean sense for its improvement. The buildings were structurally deficient and the landscaping unnatural and artificial. Once profits declined, the city demolished the fairgrounds and erased any actual remnant of the exposition from the Omaha landscape. Today, the only trace of the fair is a small park located on top of the plaster-filled lagoon. Commercial businesses and residential areas now occupy the previous location of the White City. The Trans-Mississippi Exposition strived to instill a lasting economic change, but since it was inherently tied to capitalist economic cycles, the successful boom was followed by the inevitable bust. The technological advances showcased at the fair eventually allowed Western economies to flourish, yet this was in not a direct result of the Exposition’s efforts. Though its legacy is largely forgotten, Omaha eventually evolved into a prosperous metropolis, which satisfied the initial goal of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Maddie Fung Matthew Mordeson Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Altvater, Elmar. "Ecological and Economic Modalities of Time and Space." Capitalism Nature Socialism 1, no. 3 (1898): 59-70. Bostwick, Louis, and Homer Frohardt. Shot of Government Building. Digital image. Durham Museum Photo Archive. Bostwick, Louis, and Homer Frohardt. View of the Agriculture Building. Digital image. Durham Museum Photo Archive. Dupont, Brandon R. "Panic in the Plains: Agricultural Markets and the Panic of 1893." Cliometrica 3, no. 1 (January 03, 2008): 27-54. Findling, John. "World's Fair." Encyclopaedia Britannica. September 15, 2017. Haynes, James B. History of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition. (Omaha, NE: Committee on History, 1910), 14. Hiller, Tim L., Larkin A. Powell, Tim D. McCoy, and Jeffrey J. Lusk. "Long-Term Agricultural Land-Use Trends in Nebraska, 1866-2007." Great Plains Research 19 (2009): 225-237. Kelly, Michael. "Find in Trench Dusts Off Exposition Quests." Omaha World-Herald, June 11, 1980. Landmarks Heritage Preservation Commission. Patterns on the Landscape: Heritage Conservation in North Omaha. (Omaha, NE: The Commission, 1984), 25. Maloney, Kathy Jean. World's Fair Gardens: Shaping American Landscapes. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2012. Moore, Jason W. "The Capitalocene Part I: On the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological Crisis." The Journal of Peasant Studies 44, no. 3 (March 17, 2017): 594-630. Nebraska State Commission. Report of the Nebraska State Commission for the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition. Omaha, NE: Omaha Printing Company, 1898. Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE) “Greater America Exposition at Omaha, July 1 to Nov.1, 1899.” June 25, 1899. Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE) “Only Small Crowd Appears.” July 6, 1899. Rinehart, F.A. Bird's-eye View Grand Court (Night). 1898. Durham Museum Photo Archive. Rinehart, F.A. Fine Arts Building. 1898. Durham Museum Photo Archive Rinehart, F. A. "Grand Court Looking E. (1)" Digital image. Trans- Mississippi & International Exposition. April 5, 1996.; Rinehart, F. A. "Grand Court Looking E. (2)" Digital image. Trans-Mississippi & International Exposition. April 5, 1996. Spencer, Jeffrey. East End of Lagoon. 1898. Durham Museum Photo Archive. "The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition at Omaha." Scientific American 78, no. 22 (May 28, 1898): 346-47. Wishart, Ryan. "Coal River's Last Mountain." Organization and Environment 25, no. 4 (November 27, 2012): 470-485. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. 6. Zipay, John P., "The Changing Population of the Omaha SMSA 1860-1967 With Estimates for 1970" (1967). Publications Archives, 1963-2000. Boosterism Financial Panic Transmississippi Exposition World's Fairs https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/ab256367e5505777f6e0b157a038e1c6.jpg d5b256afb5ab4380601eb516bffe5dd4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nebraska Tire and Rubber Company Certificate Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/463fbb76ca5173d59b3c1e580a8364f5.jpg ea969e86f7a87fdcb4219a6700090a6f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Omaha Overland Tire Factory Subject The topic of the resource The Omaha Overland Tire Factory, pictured here represents a common tire factory in the 1920s Description An account of the resource Men working with tires. Located at 30th and Taylor Streets in Omaha, Nebraska. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Photo Archive http://durhammuseum.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15426coll1/id/4532/rec/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1926-05-04 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/abc9d4fcd7ac6c4140c5d6264609e8d4.jpg b32e5482768640b22b9eb004c0e09eaa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Natural and Synthetic Rubber and Tyres Subject The topic of the resource This map shows the global natural and synthetic rubber production and also shows the major movement of natural rubber from Southeast Asia. Description An account of the resource Industry (continued). Pergamon World Atlas. Pergamon Press, Ltd. & P.W.N. Poland 1967. Sluzba Topograficzna W.P. Pergamon World Atlas. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived David Rumsey Map Collection https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~205401~3002403:Industry--continued---Pergamon-Worl?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:rubber%20world;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=1&trs=2834# Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conquering Time and Space Subject The topic of the resource <div>Industrial Revolutions <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4704/39667361775_2e3264c4bf_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> <a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~24266~880086:-Birdseye-view-Great-Plains-#" title="Bird Eye View - Rumsey" target="_blank">Detail(Birdseye view Great Plains)Knight, Leonard & Co.,Engravers and Printers, Chicago. (1890) David Rumsey.com </a></div> Description An account of the resource Industrial revolutions fundamentally transformed the world’s social and economic order. Beginning in Great Britain in the eighteenth century, European empires expanded industrialization into a global phenomenon that created spectacular wealth and unprecedent power for western countries, but also led to new social conflict and increased the gap between rich and poor. Industrialization also led to profound changes in the global environment. Advances in transportation and telecommunications expanded the reach of industrial powers. The railroad and the telegraph allowed people to tap distant natural resources more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Contemporaries praised this “annihilation of time and space” and Omaha was central to this story. The first transcontinental telegraph began in Omaha and was completed in 1861. In 1863, the Union Pacific chose Omaha as the eastern terminus for the transcontinental railroad. By 1867, the United States had built the world’s largest railroad network, business leaders communicated from coast to coast, and Omaha stood at the center. As railroads and the telegraph shrank time and space, cities expanded. Streetcars promoted urban growth and the rise of the first suburbs. The objects in this section show rail and the telegraph reshaped environments during this era of industrialization. As you move through this section of the exhibit, consider how transportation and telecommunication connects Omaha to the wider world and to global environments today. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rubber Tires Subject The topic of the resource This logo of the Nebraska Tire and Rubber Company represents the twentieth- century global rubber boom. It connects the evolution of transportation in Omaha to the demand for rubber. The early 1900s saw a dramatic increase in rubber driven partly by the popularity of the automobile. By 1923, Omaha had the highest ratio of population to automobiles. As the demand for rubber tires grew, so did deforestation. Rubber trees are native to the Amazon, and until 1876, environmental impacts remained confined to South America. By the early 1900s, rubber plantations took root in Southeast Asia and then western Africa. The rubber industry globalized forest clearance to make way for new monocrop plantations. This logo serves as a reminder of the global impact the items we use daily can have on the world around us. Description An account of the resource Every commodity we use today has a story, a history, and simultaneously acts as a connection and division between nature and humanity. Rubber is no exception; its history is rich and widespread, connecting each place it comes into contact with to the Anthropocene. Omaha, like any other city, had its own role to play in this story. Serving as evidence, the logo of the Nebraska Tire and Rubber Company, our artifact, connects Omaha with changes in transportation and the global rubber industry. It symbolizes their coevolution and simultaneous effects on environments thousands of miles away. In this essay we examine the history of the rubber industry in the Amazon, its leap into Southeast Asia, and how these affected local environments. We then connect these histories with our specific company, the tire industry, and the United States’ continued role in the global rubber industry. The story of rubber starts where the plant itself originated: in the Amazon basin. For most of the 18th and 19th centuries Brazil supplied almost all of the world’s demand for rubber. (Grandin, 2009) In the 18th century, the two most common rubber trees (Havea brasiliensis and Castilloa ulei) (Stanfield, 1998) grew wild in small patches of two to three trees spread throughout the jungle. (Grandin, 2009) Seringueros, or tree tappers, collected the sap from the trees and transported it back to their tents to create the first form of latex. There, he would smoke the sap over a fire to produce a ball of rubber taken to aviadores, or middlemen, who would then sell it . The collection of the latex was not simply a passive process. To extract the latex from the Castilloa trees required the tappers to create deep cuts which resulted in the death of the tree. This was such a problem that by 1874, reports came in telling of the decline in rubber exports due to the destruction of the trees. (Stanfield, 1998) This marked the first stage of environmental transformation due to the rubber industry. In 1876, Henry Wickham committed an act of bio-piracy that would change the world forever. (Clay, 2004) He illegally smuggled over 70,000 seeds of rubber plants to Kew Gardens in London from the Amazon. The plants were then transferred to the British colonies in Southeast Asia. Rubber trees flourished on the plantations in Southeast Asia due to the lack of natural diseases and fungi that were a cause of concern for the plantations in the Amazon. Within a span of 9 years the amount of latex produced in Southeast Asia grew from 8,500 tons to 370,000 tons. (Grandin, 2009) From this point onward, the Amazonian monopoly began its slow decline. By 1947, Brazil was no longer exporting rubber to the rest of the world. Where one rubber empire fell another rose to power. New plantations developed in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, and forests were clear cut to make room for the new monocrop, ultimately leading to a decrease in the natural biodiversity of the area. (Clay, 2004) The climate was perfect for the rubber species and the area provided cheap sources of labor. The trees are usually productive for up to 30-40 years and historically used for lumber after the end of their productive lifespan and ultimately replanted. (Gordon, 2004) In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the world used natural rubber as it’s source specifically in household items such as belts or hoses. (United States Synthetic Rubber Program, 2018) However, natural rubber has one major drawback, when exposed to extreme temperatures, it melts in the hot summer and cracks in the cold winter. In response, the rubber industry explored new ways to manufacture rubber. Through a process of trial, error, and serendipity, Charles Goodyear succeeded in “vulcanizing” rubber in 1839. Goodyear combined sulfur and rubber at a very high temperature. To his astonishment, instead of the rubber melting as it usually did at a high temperature, the rubber got harder as the heat rose. (Somma, 2015) Vulcanization is still in practice today. Without Goodyear’s invention of vulcanization, rubber would not be able to provide the means of transportation through tires. During the 1880s, bicycling increased in popularity and opened up space for a new market, tire manufacturing. Most of the rubber companies found on the east coast wanted nothing to do with making tires and stuck to what they knew -- making rubber shoes. This opened up a new market within the Midwest for tire production. Bicycles continued to gain popularity and by 1897, 3 million bikes were being manufactured around the country. With the advent of a new transportation through automobiles, this number dropped to 225,000 machines in 1904. By 1907 companies producing tires for automobiles thrived with 33% of their sales being for the larger more expensive car tires. (French, 1991) The 1900s saw a rise in the demand for rubber and many places profited. As global demand increased so too did the need for new rubber plantations. From 1910-1920 the total global area of rubber trees planted increased from 1,125,000 acres to 4,500,000 acres. (Babcock, 1966) The certificate of the Nebraska Tire and Rubber Company shows the importance of rubber not only in the United States, but specifically the impact of rubber in Omaha. In the 1920s, Omaha saw a boom in tire demand. The Nebraska Tire and Rubber Company was one of the leading producers at this time . The president, Mr. William Wuchter, began his career with bicycle tires in 1897 and adapted his business with the increasing use of the new household item, the automobile. (India Rubber & Tire Review, 1922) The automobile industry sparked not only across the nation in the 1920s, but specifically in Omaha. In fact, by 1923, Omaha was the leading city with the highest ratio of population to automobile ownership. (Harding,2017) According to the India Rubber & Tire Review, “Three tire manufacturers in Omaha are making approximately 1,500 tires and on average 1,000 a day each.” The Nebraska Rubber and Tire company attributed to 550 of these 1,500 tires and 500 of the 1,000 tubes produced each day. To keep up with high demand, the company was open and working 24/7. (India Rubber & Tire Review, 1922) It is clear that rubber is one of the most important commodities in the United States, “The American rubber industry became the largest and the most technologically advanced in the world. By the late 1930s, the United States was using half the world's supply of natural rubber, and most of it originated in Southeast Asia.” However, in 1941, not only did the United States feel the impact of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but the Japanese also seized the United States’ rubber plantations in Southeast Asia. These rubber plantations consisted of 90%-95% of the world’s resource of rubber. Hence, the thought of losing almost all rubber resources caused the United States to question how they would proceed with the war. Without being able to produce tires for airplanes, cars, or other war machinery, an increasing fear arose that the Allies could not win the war. (United States Synthetic Rubber Program, 2018) It was time for a call to action. Franklin Roosevelt responded to the rubber shortage through three specific actions. First, Roosevelt asked Americans to be mindful of their rubber consumption and to collect extra rubber for recycling. Next, U.S. plant scientists traveled to nearly all corners of the earth to find other resources that could be used to produce rubber. Lastly, Roosevelt called for a production of a new synthetic rubber. (United States Synthetic Rubber Program, 2018) Two lines of thought emerged on what the best starting material for synthetic rubber would be: one side argued to create it from grain alcohol while the other advocated for the use of petroleum. Some of the biggest advocates for rubber made from grain alcohol came from the Midwest. The plan included building alcohol plants in the middle of Nebraska. They never received government support because the petroleum industry assured the government that they would be able to provide the rubber the country needed, and so synthetic rubber plants based on converting petroleum started to pop up. (Finlay, 2009) As a result, hundreds of thousands of new synthetic rubber materials increased to make accommodations for World War II. These actions that Roosevelt called for were essential to the US victory in World War II. In modern times, synthetic rubber has increased in demand. Countries in Asia, specifically China, have the highest demand for both synthetic and natural rubber. It is also evident that world consumption of synthetic rubber is higher than natural rubber. However, many products require natural rubber, such as airplane and car tires. Today natural rubber takes up 29% of the global rubber market, the remaining demand is synthetic rubber substitutes. (Clay, 2004) The United States consumption of natural rubber is highly used in the production of tires. (Tire Manufacturer Testing Dandelion Rubber, 2012) Natural rubber, made from latex not petroleum, favors over synthetic rubber in the manufacturing of tires because of its resilience, resistance to abrasion and high impact forces, ability to disperse heat and malleability when it gets cold. To this day, research with synthetic rubber has not been able to create a product that performs as well as natural rubber does. (Van Beilen and Poirier, 2007) “Aircraft tires require nearly 100% natural rubber to meet heat tolerance and required adhesion specifications.” (Tire Manufacturer Testing Dandelion Rubber, 2012) In comparison, car tires compose of 35-40% natural rubber for the same reasons. (Clay, 2004) Natural rubber is not only used for tires, but also found in tennis shoes, surgical gloves, rubber bands, hoses, and many more household items. With the large consumption of natural and synthetic rubber in our country, there is a push for recycling rubber materials, especially because it can take fifty to eighty years for rubber to decompose. (Adhikari and Maiti, 2000) Even with the effort to find ways to start recycling rubber materials this does not change the fact that forest landscapes have suffered centuries of transformations and exploitative practices. During the start of his automobile empire Henry Ford wished to find ways to economize and control as many parts of his business as he could. This led to the purchase of land in the Amazon jungle in Brazil to be used for the creation of rubber plantations. This attempt failed, but Ford’s purchase, now called Fordlandia, has become pasture land for cattle after years of deforestation. The roads that Ford had built resulted in fragmented landscapes propelling extinctions of species that require huge amounts of land to survive. (Grandin, 2009) Southeast Asia has also suffered from immense landscape change due to high demand for the latex. Since 1961 rubber production has increased by a factor of 1500% in Southeast Asia. (Fox et al., 2000) Its range is being expanded from where it was originally planted to keep up with demand. (Li and Fox, 2012) Typically, this process used the slash and burn tactic to clear forests needed for the new plantations. The new areas are less suitable for rubber plantations and usually require some form of terracing to grow properly leading to higher rates of soil erosion. (Ziegler, Fox, and Xu, 2009) As the demand for new tires continues to increase areas in Southeast Asia will continue to be transformed and degraded. The Nebraska Tire & Rubber company shows the impact that a single commodity can have not only on the city of Omaha, but on a global perspective. Not only does rubber serve as a vital part to suffice our need for modern day transportation, but it is also seen in everyday objects. Our world would not be where it is today without rubber. From its original habitat in the Amazon, to Goodyear’s invention of producing natural rubber through vulcanization, and the increasing amount of natural forest loss, it is evident that the consumption of rubber on a global scale has attributed to the Anthropocene. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Emma Baker Rebecca Hare Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Adhikari, B., and S. Maiti.“Reclamation and Recycling of Waste Rubber,” Progress in Polymer Science, vol. 25, iss. 7, 909-948, September 2000. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079670000000204 Ahrends, Hollingsworth, Ziegler, Fox, Chen, Su, and Xu. "Current Trends of Rubber Plantation Expansion May Threaten Biodiversity and Livelihoods." Global Environmental Change 34 (2015): 48-58. Babcock, Glenn D. History of the United States Rubber Company; a Case Study in Corporation Management. Indiana Business Reports ; No. 39. Bloomington: Bureau of Business Research, Graduate School of Business, Indiana University, 1966. Beilen, Jan B. Van, and Yves Poirier. "Establishment of New Crops for the Production of Natural Rubber." Trends in Biotechnology25, no. 11 (2007): 522-29. Clay, Jason W., and World Wildlife Fund. Staff. World Agriculture and the Environment a Commodity-by-commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004. Finlay, Mark R. Growing American Rubber Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security.Studies in Modern Science, Technology, and the Environment. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Fox, Jefferson, Dao Minh Truong, A. Terry Rambo, Nghiem Phuong Tuyen, Le Trong Cuc, and Stephen Leisz. "Shifting Cultivation: A New Old Paradigm for Managing Tropical Forests." BioScience50, no. 6 (2000): 521. French, M. J. The U.S. Tire Industry : A History. Twayne's Evolution of American Business Series ; No. 6. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991. Gordon, Alec. "Dynamics of Labour Transformation: Natural Rubber in Southeast Asia." Journal of Contemporary Asia 34, no. 4 (2004): 523-46 Grandin, Greg. Fordlandia : The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009. Harding, David. "Hupmobile Showroom Was Part of Omaha's Auto Row on Farnam Street." Omaha.com. March 22, 2017. http://www.omaha.com/living/hupmobile-showroom-was-part-of-omaha-s-auto-row-on/article_f7ccb2a8-0b5f-11e7-91c5-bf401131adb4.html. "India Rubber & Tire Review." Google Books. Accessed March 27, 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=xNjmAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA64&dq=Nebraska rubberandtirecompany&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNucrA_YfaAhUIG6wKHSwPBQUQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Nebraska rubber and tire company&f=false. Li, Zhe, and Jefferson M. Fox. "Mapping Rubber Tree Growth in Mainland Southeast Asia Using Time-series MODIS 250 m NDVI and Statistical Data." Applied Geography 32, no. 2 (2012): 420-32. "Overland Tire and Rubber Company." Bostwick-Frohardt Collection. Accessed March 28, 2018. http://durhammuseum.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15426coll1 /id/4532/rec/6. Somma, Ann M. "Charles Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber." Connecticut History. Accessed March 27, 2018. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyear-and-the-vulcanization-of-rubber/ "Statistical Summary of World Rubber Situation." Accessed March 27, 2017. http://www.rubberstudy.com/documents/WebSiteData_Feb2018.pdf. "Tire Manufacturer Testing Dandelion Rubber." Material Analysis & Materials Testing Lab. July 05, 2012. Accessed March 27, 2018. https://www.polymersolutions.com/blog/tire-manufacturer-testing-rubber-from-dandelion/. "U.S. Synthetic Rubber Program - National Historic Chemical Landmark." American Chemical Society. Accessed March 27, 2018. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/syntheticrubber.html. "United States Synthetic Rubber Program, 1939-1945." A National Chemical Historical Landmark. Accessed March 27, 2018. https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/syntheticrubber/us-synthetic-rubber-program-historical-resourc.pdf. Ziegler, A. D., J. M. Fox, and J. Xu. "The Rubber Juggernaut." Science324, no. 5930 (2009): 1024-025. https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/641ef90e4aaf51c6a3bcfc20365e5544.jpg 65ec376ee30ef15bc60c203e79b16a53 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Monkey Wrench Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Permanent Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/6964d1b20d929b6457a8f37e8c418e04.jpg 100f5ae3f7bb429e3184cf4a5039a953 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Map of Omaha City and Environs Description An account of the resource Lithographed map. Hand colored. Shows tracts, block numbers, townships, sections, quarter sections, railroads, roads, owners of large parcels, etc. With Jan. 19, 1885 certification with facsimile signature of Geo. Smith. Oriented with north toward left. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Adin Mann Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived David Rumsey Map Collection https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~29081~1130186:Omaha-City-&-environs-?showTipAdvancedSearch=false&showShareIIIFLink=true&showTip=false&helpUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fdoc.lunaimaging.com%2Fdisplay%2FV73D%2FLUNA%2BViewer%23LUNAViewer-LUNAViewer&title=Search+Results%3A+List_No+equal+to+%272719.186%27&fullTextSearchChecked=&dateRangeSearchChecked=&advancedSearchUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fdoc.lunaimaging.com%2Fdisplay%2FV73D%2FSearching%23Searching-Searching&thumbnailViewUrlKey=link.view.search.url# Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1885 https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/4544288d8e133e3b674b3000d43312df.png fa8834f000a70555decfb52f5645ea0f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Political Cartoon Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Creightonian Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Living in a World of Our Own Making Subject The topic of the resource <a href="http://www.igbp.net/images/18.950c2fa1495db7081ebd1/1421396650502/GreatAcceleration2015igbpsrclowres.jpg" title="IGBP - The Great Acceleration Dashboard" target="_blank">The Great Acceleration</a> <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4721/40562555551_972c132773_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Description An account of the resource The Anthropocene means “The Age of Humans,” but what does it mean to live in a world of our own making? Humanity has flourished in past two centuries. Two thirds of every person ever born lived between 1945 and today. Scientists call this era of expanding population, economic development, and environmental impact the “Great Acceleration.” People are now more numerous and powerful than ever before. Mining moves more rocks and soils than all of the worlds rivers combined. Artificial fertilizers have doubled the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in our soils. Plastics can now be found on mountain tops and the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Paradoxically, many of the most profound changes to global environments pass virtually unnoticed. Nuclear fallout, for instance, is invisible to the naked eye, but radioactive evidence of cold war weapons tests remains in soils around the world. Until recently, lead was one of the most common materials in industrial use. It was used to seal our foods, paint our homes, and power our cars. Lead is toxic, especially for children. Although invisible, lead is now in our soils, in our cities, and even in our blood. By contrast, concrete is virtually everywhere, yet we rarely think about it. We drive on it, work in it, and the foundations of this very museum are built using it. More than half of the concrete ever produced was manufactured between 1995-2015. Concrete requires enormous energy to mine, transport, and produce. These consequences are as invisible to us as the material is abundant. As you finish your journey through the exhibit, consider how many other “invisible” materials influence our lives and connect us to the global environment. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Monkey Wrench Subject The topic of the resource Tools like this twentieth-century monkey wrench tuned machines and shaped environments during the Second Industrial Revolution. Associated with railroading in the nineteenth century, the monkey wrench symbolizes industrial progress. Later in the twentieth century, the monkey wrench became a symbol of environmental resistance to industrial progress. In his novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey popularized an ideology of direct action against environmental destruction, which later inspired environmental organization such as Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front. This wave of environmentalism found its way to Omaha and led to the formation of the Quality Environment Council and acts of environmental protest on Creighton University’s campus in the 1970s. The monkey wrench is an important artifact of the Anthropocene, symbolizing both industrialism and environmentalism. Description An account of the resource First created in nineteenth-century England, the monkey wrench is an adjustable tool used in many areas of industry to insert screws and fasten materials together (Geesin 2015). As such, the monkey wrench is a symbol of the innovation, industrialization and in the context of the Anthropocene, the humans on the earth system. Ironically, the monkey wrench symbolizes resistance to these changes as well. Since the publication of American author Edward Abbey’s novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang in 1975, the tool has become a symbol of radical environmentalism as well. This is the paradox of the monkey wrench: a tool created for use in industry and the taming of the natural world by mankind, has also become a totem for those who radically oppose the very same industrial advancement. The monkey wrench, thus tells us two contrasting stories of the Anthropocene. The first, industrial progress and the second, questioning and active resistance to that “progress”. The monkey wrench in the collection of the Durham Museum (<a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/641ef90e4aaf51c6a3bcfc20365e5544.jpg">Figure 1</a>) bears no distinctive markings or indicators as to when or where it was made. However, it was likely manufactured in the early 20th century due to its similarity to examples from that time (Geesin 2015). Its proximity to Omaha, Nebraska is unsurprising, as similar wrenches were utilized and modified in the Omaha area in the 1920s. The elongated handle and ratchet for size adjustment are common features of period wrenches (Inventions New and Interesting). The development of new and improved versions of the monkey wrench tailored the tool to different areas of industry. By the mid-nineteenth-century, the manufacturing of such wrenches was a thriving and competitive industry on its own (Greeley 1874). Although different iterations of the monkey wrench were in various areas of industry, one of the most common uses was in the construction and maintenance of steam locomotives. The monkey wrench would have been widely employed in Omaha’s many railroad shops. Omaha was and continues to be the headquarters of the Union Pacific Railroad from the nineteenth-century (Monkey Wrench). <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/6964d1b20d929b6457a8f37e8c418e04.jpg">Figure 2</a> is a map of Omaha from 1885 depicting the transformational effect that the Union Pacific railroad imparted on the city after only two decades of prevalence. The pink area on the lower-right portion of the map shows the expanse of the Union Pacific Shops. The city grew and developed in the nineteenth-century largely as a result of its relationship with the Union Pacific Railroad. After the railroad construction began in the 1860s, an influx of employment opportunities in Omaha allowed for its growth to surpass its neighbor cities and the city became a gateway to the Western portion of the United States. The project of building the railroad brought thousands of jobs to the Omaha area and this opportunity to make a living working on it saw Omaha’s population increase at an incredible rate (Bristow 2000). By the twentieth-century, Omaha had become a railroad hub and central city of the second industrial revolution in the United States. The growth of Omaha’s railroad industry transformed Omaha and Nebraska with dramatic environmental consequences. In an 1867 book, The Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha, Nebraska, Across the Continent, the Union Pacific Railroad Company outlines the economic opportunities afforded by the construction of the railroad. These opportunities were headlined by the opportunity to expand the areas in which people live westward, bridging the gap between the Eastern and Western United States. In addition, natural resources such as untapped land for farming, mining, hunting and harvesting lumber were held as the most lucrative of opportunities. During this time period, the Union Pacific railroad transported 460,000 tons of freight across the continent each year (The Union Pacific Railroad Company 1867). This industrial expanding of the railroad to the West would manifest itself through an immense impact on the environment of the Great Plains. As the railroad stretched West towards the Rocky Mountains, populations and land usage in the Great Plains region increased at an incredible rate. The further that the railroad stretched, the more settlements were established along it. These settlements enabled the land to be used by the new people in an area where it had been nearly impossible to receive supplies and contact with the East prior to railroad construction (Whitney 1994). <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/23598e7fe45a0b6d110faa984b789628.png">Figure 3</a> shows measured usages of land for raising livestock and crops, as well as the population in the Great Plains region after construction on the Transcontinental Railroad from Omaha began. Once a small number of individuals had begun to populate the Great Plains and begin to tame the land, the success of their agricultural endeavors coupled with the ease of communication with the rest of the country established by the railroad and the transcontinental telegraph brought people seeking prosperity in the region (Hartman 2011). As the region was further developed throughout the decades following the establishment of rural communities, the impact of large-scale agriculture took its toll on the local and global environments. In addition to the establishment of a booming agriculture industry in the Great Plains, the railroad enabled transnational and international trade of hides and furs of animals. One striking example was the systematic destruction and near extinction of the North American Bison. <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/9e930674cc1bd5e8bafcd27de827333a.png">Figure 4</a> demonstrates the marked spike in the number of bison hide exports almost immediately after the beginning of railroad construction from Omaha, along with the consistent rise in cattle population in the Great Plains (Taylor 2011, Bozell 1995). Bison hide exports declined significantly in the late 1870s as the population of bison dwindled in the region, while the cattle population maintained its steady rise through the late 1880s. The hunting of bison to virtual extinction is an example of the devastating damage that the increased accessibility to the Great Plains established by the railroad had on its environment (Taylor 2011). There is a stark increase and subsequent decrease in the number of bison hides exported as the population dwindled in the 1870s (Hartman 2011). As a tool and symbol of industry, the monkey wrench represented the growth of progress and urbanization and taming of their surrounding landscapes. In Omaha and Nebraska, the railroad played an important role in these changes that also resulted in significant environmental consequences, especially in grassland environments. However, this rampant industrialization was no longer accepted uncritically as “progress” by the mid-twentieth-century. “Monkey Wrenching” came to embody active resistance to industrial growth at the expense of the environment. This term entered public discourse upon publication of Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang in 1975. In his novel Abbey tells the fictional story of a group of activists who commit acts of sabotage in the name of environmentalism. The group destroys bridges, billboards and makes plans to destroy a dam. Their activities, called “monkeywrenching,” lauded the destruction of industrial property for the sake of saving the natural world from development (Abbey 1975). <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/ffdc6157e4715c6d9d4f9f5d4c332dde.png">Figure 5</a> is an  example of illustrations by Robert Crumb from The Monkey Wrench Gang. Abbey’s characters saw industry, government-sponsored or corporate, as a threat and promoted uncompromising resistance. After the release of The Monkey Wrench Gang, the monkey wrench was a widely recognized symbol for radical environmentalism as it had been described in the book. The writing itself became a handbook for those looking to shake up the industrial establishment through acts of monkeywrenching. From the ideology of Edward Abbey sprung a variety of radical environmental groups, most notably the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Earth First! of which Abbey was a member. The actions of destroying machines in an attempt to slow the progress of industry harken back to the attempted Luddite revolution in late 18th century England. Although the Luddites were motivated by the prospect of keeping their own jobs in industry, the consequences of destroying machinery were much the same (Horn 2005). The ideology established by Abbey in the late twentieth-century was one of resistance to industrial development of the environment. This ideology manifested itself in acts of direct and indirect resistance. In the vain of direct resistance, groups such as Earth First! And the ELF, established in 1980 and 1992 respectively, committed acts of sabotage in the United States. Bombings claimed by ELF have targeted ski resorts, animal testing facilities, fishing operations and other sites of humans meddling with the environment. This led to ELF’s listing as the greatest domestic threat in the United States by the FBI in 2001 (Taylor 2008). Earth First! did not claim responsibility for destructive crimes, although some of their members have been personally indicted for various acts of sabotage. In 1983, an editorial in the journal Environmental Ethics personally addressed Edward Abbey and his friends for actively encouraging the destruction of industrial resources, thus endangering the lives of workers. Abbey responded directly, claiming that Earth First! is little more than a disorganized group of environmentalists who come together for acts of civil disobedience in the face of the destruction of nature. He also plainly stated that he believes that the destruction of nature is an act of terrorism (Abbey 1983). Foreman takes matters a step further, openly denying acts of monkeywrenching in Earth First! while directly stating that he believes that such acts are completely morally justified (Foreman 1983). The direct actions of groups such as Earth First! and ELF coupled with a new ideology of environmentalism had a massive impact on the United States throughout the late 20th century. Other citizens intent on protecting the environment practiced indirect resistance to industrial progress. In Omaha, these effects manifested in the creation of the Quality Environment Council (QEC). Established in the 1970s, the Omaha QEC protected the parks and open spaces in Omaha against development. Its original goal was to prevent the construction of a mall in downtown Omaha. They managed to prevent further development within the city in this case, however this simply diverted the same development to the suburbs (Taylor 1973). The QEC also vehemently opposed the release of extremely hot waste water into the Missouri river by the Omaha Public Power District in 1972. They succeeded in the city imposing a required cooling time for all water being disposed of in the river to prevent destruction of the environment within (Omaha World Herald 1972). On the campus of Creighton University, students reacted negatively to the environmental policies of the Nixon administration in the 1970s. Although Nixon was the president who established the Environmental Protection Agency, students at Creighton did not believe that this was enough, given the publication of a study claiming that 73% of all water in the United States is contaminated with industrial byproducts. <a href="http://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/4544288d8e133e3b674b3000d43312df.png">Figure 6</a> displays a political cartoon published in The Creightonian, the school newspaper. This is an example of civil disobedience within the student population against large companies and government policies. The article published with this cartoon admonishes the industrial domination of nature, providing examples of deforestation, water contamination and animal populations nearing extinction (Meyer 1970). In a further article from The Creightonian, the newspaper announces the beginning of seemingly the first ecology class at the university. With its purpose to study the physical and social implications of the environment and the factors which contribute to damaging it, this certainly shows a shift in the mindset of people in Omaha towards at least some form of environmentalism (Lohr 1972). The monkey wrench, through its contributions to industry primarily through the railroad, has historically been a tool and symbol of industrial progress. The meaning of progress changed over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, however. By the Green Decades of the 1960s and 1970s, and drawing upon criticisms of corporate and state “development,” the monkey wrench became a symbol of resistance. Direct resistance of the type advocated by Edward Abbey and radical groups such as Earth First! and the ELF, though these strategies found little support in Nebraska or Omaha. In Omaha, indirect resistance was the primary mode of fighting industrial progress for the betterment of the natural environment. The dual symbolism of the monkey wrench, promoting progress and simultaneously symbolizing resistance to it, is a fitting artifact of the Anthropocene. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brad MacDonald Hasan Lari Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Abbey, E. “Earth first! And the Monkey Wrench Gang.” Environmental Ethics 5, no.1 (1983): 94-95. https://www.pdcnet.org//pdc/bvdb.nsf Abbey, E. The Monkey Wrench Gang (Salt Lake City: Dream Garden Press, 1975). Bozell, J. “Culture, Environment, and Bison Populations on the Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Central Plains.” Plains Anthropologist. 40, no. 152 (1995): 145-163. Bristow, D. A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tales of 19th Century Omaha (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 152-154. Foreman, D. “More on Earth First! And The Monkey Wrench Gang.” Environmental Ethics. 5, no.1 (1983): 95-96. Geesin, R. Adjustable Spanner: History, Origins and Development to 1970 (Crowood: Antiques & Collectibles, 2015). George M. Smith, Omaha Central. 1885. Lithographed map, 40 x 69 cm. David Rumsey. From: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, www.davidrumsey.com (Accessed April 4, 2018). Greeley, H. The Great Industries of the United States (Hartford: J.B. Burr & Hyde, 1874), 875-876. Gutmann, M. “Beyond Social Science History: Population and Environment in the US Great Plains.” Social Science History, 42, no. 1 (2018). Hartman, M. “Impact of Historical Land-Use Changes on Greenhouse Gas Exchange in the U.S. Great Plains, 1883-2003.” Ecological Applications. 21, no. 4 (2011): 1105-1119. Horn, J. “Machine-breaking in England and France during the Age of Revolution.” Labour 55, (2005): 143-166. “Hot Water Dumping Is Protested,” The Omaha World Herald (Omaha, NE), July 19, 1972. "Inventions New and Interesting." Scientific American 127, no. 2 (1922): 117-20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24993964 Lohr, J. “Ecology Course To Study Physical, Social Environment,” The Creightonian (Omaha, NE), October 27, 1972. Meyer, M. “Environment: Student Issue,” The Creightonian (Omaha, NE), January 9, 1970. “Monkey Wrench.” America on the Move, last modified 2018, http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/collection/object_137 Crumb, Robert. The Monkey Wrench Gang. 1975. Source: JohnShalek.com, 2009, Digital Image. Available from: http://www.joshshalek.com/tag/the-monkey-wrench-gang/ Taylor, Bron. "The Tributaries of Radical Environmentalism." Journal for the Study of Radicalism 2, no. 1 (2008): 27-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41887590. Taylor, J. “Leahy: River Critics ‘In A Dream World’,” The Omaha World Herald (Omaha, NE), July 25, 1973. Taylor, S. “International Trade and the Virtual Extinction of the North American Bison.” American Economic Association. 101, no. 7 (2011): 3162-3195. Union Pacific Railroad Company, The Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha, Nebraska, Across the Continent (Chicago: Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, 1867), 7. Whitney, G. From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 188-190. Zalasiewicz, J. “Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene.” Philosophical Transitions. 396 (2016): 1036- 1055. https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/15e6eaaf65eea4df90409ae9e6241696.jpg 3f4fe8024f05c33882d8ebd47d4e2450 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yoke Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/86819fc21f6a501eca0664ac453899f5.jpg 2e551f1ddc8cdd9db431e7fca1453920 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Photograph of the Yoke on display, and its parts labeled: Description An account of the resource Beam: the main body of the yoke, the beam that rests across the neck of the ox. Neck seat: The part that rests directly on the neck of the animal Belly: The lowest point of the yoke, between the two oxen. This is also where the staple and hitch rings hang, and where implements are hooked up. Bow(s): The curved pieces that go around the ox’s neck. The bows rest on the shoulder and provide the ox with something to push against when drawing a load. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Durham Museum Collection https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/9373f7990463561b7fef385eff50afb3.jpg a40ba585d3020e0837eaa2e18afffbb2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1880 Cultivated Land Description An account of the resource change in the plains over the course over 60 years. The darker a county is, the higher the percentage of cultivated land. 1900 is significantly more cultivated than the 1940 map due to over cultivation and plowing that was corrected in the mid-1920s and 30s. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jen Luttrell Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived IPUMS NHGIS. Accessed March 22, 2018. https://www.nhgis.org/ https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/1beef818a804ab2985f792dd52cdd748.jpg 20f8d27b0fc2f4f4008dfb0ebe58356b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1900 Cultivated Land Description An account of the resource Change in the plains over the course over 60 years. The darker a county is, the higher the percentage of cultivated land. 1900 is significantly more cultivated than the 1940 map due to over cultivation and plowing that was corrected in the mid-1920s and 30s. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jen Luttrell Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived IPUMS NHGIS. Accessed March 22, 2018. https://www.nhgis.org/ https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/91e3abbc7902424c630b7b7df4ea51aa.jpg 37fb576375890203bfacbd0228959198 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1920 Cultivated Land Description An account of the resource Change in the plains over the course over 60 years. The darker a county is, the higher the percentage of cultivated land. 1900 is significantly more cultivated than the 1940 map due to over cultivation and plowing that was corrected in the mid-1920s and 30s. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jen Luttrell Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived IPUMS NHGIS. Accessed March 22, 2018. https://www.nhgis.org/. https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/675ea182d9c81d3165b11e535235afa5.jpg bdb18bb5501e0da58b50ce58617fd21e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1940 Cultivated Land Description An account of the resource Change in the plains over the course over 60 years. The darker a county is, the higher the percentage of cultivated land. 1900 is significantly more cultivated than the 1940 map due to over cultivation and plowing that was corrected in the mid-1920s and 30s. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jen Luttrell Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived IPUMS NHGIS. Accessed March 22, 2018. https://www.nhgis.org/. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Taming the Landscape Subject The topic of the resource The Early Anthropocene <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4740/38752446300_776a102fdd_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Description An account of the resource When did people begin to take control of the global environment? Humans have shaped their local environments for hundreds of thousands of years. As populations increased, their impacts expanded. Two changes greatly accelerated human influence on a global scale: the movement of hunting societies and the development of agriculture. By the end of the last ice age, humans had migrated across much of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Whenever humans appeared, a wave of extinctions followed. In the Americas, large animals such as the Mastodon and Giant Beaver went extinct shortly after the arrival of people. Although scientists debate the origin of these mass extinctions (changing climate likely played a role), hunting was a significant factor. The development of agriculture played an even more important role in global environmental change. People began domesticating plants and animals around the world roughly 12,000 years ago. The stone (“lithic”) tools in our exhibit speak to this dramatic change. Agriculture often required clearing forested lands, irrigating, or fertilizing landscapes to make them suitable for crops. These changes were the foundation for settlement and later the rise of complex civilizations all over the world. Agriculture and hunting continue to reshape environments on a global scale today. The bison in this exhibit represents the consequences of modern overhunting and the single-wheel hoe represents our continued reliance on agriculture. These objects remind us that “taming the landscape” revolutionized societies, but they also produced global environmental consequences. They connect us to a deep past and symbolize a transformation that continues to shape the modern world. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yoke Subject The topic of the resource The Great Plains region was unusable for Euro-American farmers without plows and yokes. Yoked oxen pulled steel plows across the prairie, breaking through the tough sod. Yokes like this, usually made out of hardwood, harness the power of oxen. Between the years of 1880-1940 there was a drastic increase of up to 70% in plowed land through the region. Plowed soil was more likely to lose nutrients and become eroded than prairie soil. During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the soil turned to black clouds in the wind, furthering erosion. Farming practices have evolved, but grasslands remain under pressure globally. This is one component of the discussion of a new possible era called the Anthropocene. Description An account of the resource “In the 1870s the “boomers” were joined by others with excellent reputations as scientists who proclaimed that plowing up the plains had the effect of increasing rainfall - that rain follows the plow.” (Luebke, 2005) This was the mindset that lead to the settling and plowing of the Great Plains. Over several decades, the region was drastically changed through sodbusting and the long-term effects involved. In this region there was a period of major expansion followed by a period of reduction once farmers realized their error. (Cunfer, 2005) These regional changes are one of many as a result of humans occurring in different places globally. A new era for the planet caused by these human interactions, the Anthropocene, might be at hand do to these global environmental changes. The ox yoke is a tool from ancient times. It is thought they were first used in southern Europe and western Asia. However, it is difficult to determine when and where since the wood they are made of decomposes. But remains of ox horns found in 2900-2600 BCE show indentions thought to be from being tied to a yoke. (Milisauaskas, Sarunus, and Kruk, 1991) A yoke is a wooden bar or frame by which oxen are joined at the heads or necks for accomplishing tasks such as pulling a plow or a wagon. At first, farming was done largely by hand with few specific tools, later advancements made the job easier and more productive. These new farming techniques were not instantly accepted by people around the globe when they first came to be. Field peasants were weary of these new techniques and were slow to adapt to their changing environments. (Moon, 2013) These people had their ways of cultivating land that was passed on through new generations. Over time though these methods weren’t as efficient due to population growth in a changing world. Other places such as the Great Plains in North America, adapted quickly to use the new technology of oxen and plows to cultivate land. First, however, the farmer needed a yoke. The pioneers on the upper plains “had to ‘make everything and had to be as ingenious as shipwrecked soldiers.’" (Nadir, 2015) Because trees were so scarce on the Great Plains, the wood used for yokes, fences, houses, and fuel was practically worth more than a life. Everett Dick, a 19th century Nebraska farmer, stated: In those gun-toting days in Nebraska, if you had something against your neighbor, it was safer to whip out your gun and shoot him than to cut down his trees… Often a killer got away scot-free; but no such subterfuge could be claimed by a tree mutilator. It was the penitentiary for him..." (Dick 1975) The ox yoke on display at the Durham museum is a handmade neck yoke. We suspect it was made around 1880-1900 out of a hardwood. The neck yoke is most popularly used in the United States for several reasons. Neck yokes offer a few advantages such as comfort for the animal on uneven terrain, maneuverability, and are not custom fitted allowing for use on different oxen. Neck yokes are relatively easy to make even for someone new to woodworking, and safer to use for a novice at working with cattle. (Rapp, 2015) An important factor in why the neck yoke was used in the states was they were traditionally used in England, therefore culturally implemented by settlers and their descendants. (Conroy) Yokes have been made with wood, as well as with metal, or a combination of the two. (Rapp, 2015) Three different types of yoke are commonly used with oxen today: the head yoke, the neck yoke, and the withers yoke. Head yokes are custom fitted to the horns of a single animal. Neck yokes are attached around the neck of an oxen, where they push with their neck, chest and shoulders. Withers yokes are attached on the shoulder ridge and so, are commonly used on cattle breeds with humps. The versatility of oxen expands that of simply pulling a cart or plow. Oxen have also been used in the timber industry by being “the ones who skidded [pulled] the fallen trees from the forest”, a job that was dependent on these oxen. (Hribal, 2003) Historically oxen have been used for labor and agriculture over other animals like horses for several reasons. First, oxen are simply cheaper to purchase and easier to maintain. A wooden yoke could also be purchased at a relatively inexpensive price. (Dick, 1975) Oxen also provide better quality manure to fertilize the fields than other farm animals. “He [the ox] not only pulled the plow, harrowed the fields, threshed the grain, and perhaps hauled some of it to the market," the farmer John Moore noted, "all the while providing the manure for the next year’s crop.” The lack of wood meant that yokes from the early years of farming were often manufactured with other farm equipment and brought to the Great Plains, which then became invaluable to the farmers who began to sodbust the plains. Plowing through unbroken prairie could take years if done alone, even longer and more difficult to do without a team of oxen. Yoked oxen were critical for the early pioneers of the Midwest. With the introduction of the yoke to this region people were finally able to make use of the land for farming by breaking through the hard sod. “Breaking prairie sod required a plow weighing [at least] 30 to 50 kg, typically powered by six to eight oxen” and up to 14 oxen were used to sod-bust across the plains. (Rhoads, 2016) According to an Omaha World Herald article written in 1929, one farmer kept his ox team in use till “more than a thousand acres of land were broken,” when the farmer “sold the two oxen…in 1883 and the yoke was stored away.” (OWH, 1929) This is a great example of how important yokes and oxen were to farmers and how they were kept for as long as possible. Farming communities like those surrounding Omaha in the upper Midwest were products of plowing. Prior to the introduction of the plow and the oxen that pulled it, the landscape, according to William Heat-Moon in PrairyErth was “eternal prairie and grass, with occasional groups of trees.” (Heat-Moon, 2001) Pioneers did not have the strength to clear the land on their own. Sod is the tough soil of the Great Plains, it is typically covered in tall grass and was often hard enough that houses could be built out of it. The earliest communities on the Great Plains were the Native Americans who roamed the grasslands in search of food and shelter, they were followed in the early-to-mid 1800s by American settlers and explorers. These new people brought modern farming and work animals to the Great Plains. It was only with the integration of working animals before land was of any use to permanent settlements for farming. Oxen were best suited to handle the rolling landscape and thick prairie grass, the yoke and plow were necessary to make the plains yield to European agriculture. As the maps in the appendix show, there was a dramatic change as a result of the yoked oxen being introduced to the Great Plains. The hardships of the plains made the yoke and plow necessary, and through the hard work of yoked oxen teams, both the plains and the quality of life on them had changed forever. These changes were not just physical to the environment but there were also notable changes to social status of humans as well. Once farmers were able to cultivate the prairie lands it became a massive place for agriculture to occur. “Larger landowners sometimes negotiated a formal contract with sodbusters” to break up the land for them and were in turn paid for their services. (Schob, 1973) This was due to the population of people in the plains becoming so large that people could sell work to landowners who then wouldn’t have to do the hard work of sod-busting on their own farms. All of this changed once the severe environmental impacts made themselves known. Due to the sod-busting that occurred, followed by the cultivation of never-seen-before crops like corn in this region, the Great Plains changed drastically. (Wishart, 2018) There are very few places, if any, today that would look like they did before this sod-busting occurred. There was suddenly new species of plants and animals to compete for the soil and water that native species had had access to. This competition led to the further depletion of topsoil and nutrients as farmers continued to plow more land. Sod busting did more than allow new species into the area, "sod busting, wind and drought combined to strip away friable soils." (Landa and Feller, 2010) With these factors draining soil of its nutrients, more land was needed to be plowed in order for farmers to maintain the amount harvested. The cycle of over plowing and planting worsened the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. This was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and the ability for agriculture of the American prairie. "A widely respected authority on world food problems, George Borgstrom, has ranked the creation of the Dust Bowl as one of the three worst ecological blunders in history." (Worster, 1979) During the drought of the 1930s, topsoil was no longer anchored by the roots of prairie grass turned to dust. This dust was then blown away into huge, blackening clouds by prevailing winds. Droughts had happened before but there had always been prairie grass to hold moisture and soil, now there was nothing to stop the black clouds from covering the plains. This period of drought and major erosion was not exclusively caused by sodbusting but may have been less severe without farmers doing this to the land. After the Dust Bowl period farmers realized that they surpassed the limits of the land that something needed to change in the Great Plains region. “The true period of adaptation was in the transition era, between about 1930 and 1940, when farmers first reached the natural limits of environment, passed them, and were pulled back by nature.” (Cunfer, 2005) This quote from On the Great Plains summarizes how resilient nature is in its ability to recover after such vast ecological damage has occurred. This transition was not originally a choice of farmers but rather it was natures way of showing how its limits had been surpassed. Devastating impacts to the Earth, as seen in the Great Plains with Dust Bowl, are not exclusive to this region. There have been major environmental changes to the globe all caused by humans. These impacts have lead some people to think that it should be deemed the start of a new epoch called the Anthropocene. Human impacts have had on the environment globally is without a doubt drastic. “Through harvesting, deforestation, and conversion of grasslands and wetlands, humans have reduced the stock of global terrestrial plant mass by as much as 45% in the last 2000 years.” (Goudie, 2018) This destruction has exponentially increased over time with the different advancements made. Even today oxen are still widely used. In 1890, there were 1,117,494 oxen reported in the United States census. (Moore, 1961) Even today, there are hundreds of millions of oxen still used on small scale farms. The reasoning for using oxen on many of these small-scale farms is strikingly similar to the past reasoning; it is simply cheaper. Oxen are no longer compared to other working animals, but rather to machinery. Buying a tractor new would be significantly more expensive than buying claves. However, calves require much time, work, and training before they are ready to be yoked for plowing a field. A better comparison might be that of a tractor, costing $15,000, versus a team of grown and well-trained oxen, costing about $1,000 to $2,500. (Collins, 2013) This is still significantly lower in cost than a new tractor which would also require an input of gasoline, maintenance, and other issues that may arise. Oxen on the other hand, will eat the grass where they are kept and provide valuable fertilizer and even after death they have some value in being eaten as meat. (DMO, 2011) Humans have impacted the environment since the introduction of fire. Taking the once endless expanse of tall grass and adjusting the land for Euro-American farming practices, the plains were changed forever with the use of the ox yoke. Just as cultivated land in the Great Plains drastically increased in the 1900’s, human impacts on the environment globally have greatly increased over time. There have been negative impacts followed with periods of recovery for the Great Plains. This is also seen in other regions of the globe where humans have populated the land but with more devastation than recovery. Since the birth of the human race, devastating changes have been made all over the globe; are these impacts enough to constitute a new era, the Anthropocene? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jen Luttrell Abbey Rieber Nicole Shintani Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Collins, Rob. “Small Farming With Oxen - Animals - GRIT Magazine.” Grit, Apr. 2013, https://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/farming-with-oxen-zm0z13mazgou. Accessed March 25, 2018. Conroy, Drew. "Ox Yokes: Culture, Comfort and Animal Welfare" (PDF). World Association for Transport Animal Welfare and Studies. Cunfer, Geoff. On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2005. Daily Mail Reporter. “Farmers across America Ditch Tractors for Oxen in Bid to Beat Rising Fuel Prices.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 9 May 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385193/Take-bull-horns-Farmers-America-trade-tractors-oxen-beat-soaring-fuel-prices.html. Accessed March 24, 2018. 3 May 2011. Dick, Everett. "Conquering the Great American Desert: Nebraska. Conquering the Great American Desert: Nebraska." Nebraska State Historical Society Publications (1975). Goudie, Andrew. Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present and Future. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2018. Hribal, Jason. ""Animals Are Part of the Working Class": A Challenge to Labor History." Labor History 44.4 (2003): 435-53. Landa E.R. In a Supporting Role: Soil and the Cinema. In: Landa E., Feller C. (eds) Soil and Culture. Springer, Dordrecht. 2010 Luebke, Frederick C. Nebraska: An Illustrated History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Milisauskas, Sarunus & Janusz Kruk. “Utilization of cattle for traction during the later Neolithic in Southeastern Poland.” Antiquity, Vol. 65, No. 248. September 1991. pp. 562-566 Moon, David. “The Plough that Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia's Grasslands, 1700-1914” Oxford University Press. 2013. Moon, William Least Heat. PrairyErth. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Accessed March 25, 2018.Moore, John H. “The Ox in the Middle Ages.” Agricultural History, vol. 35, no. 2, 1961, pp. 90–93. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3740550 Nadir, Leila C. "Time Out of Place." Cather Studies.10 (2015): 68-96. Accessed March 25, 2018. Pullen, Daniel J. "Ox and Plow in the Early Bronze Age Aegean." American Journal of Archaeology 96, no. 1 (1992): 45-54. doi:10.2307/505757. Rapp, Callene. "The Art of Making an Ox Yoke: Working with Wood Can Be a Challenge, but the Finished Product Is Well worth the Effort." Grit 133, no. 2 (2015): 60. Rhoads, et al. “Historical Changes in Channel Network Extent and Channel Planform in an Intensively Managed Landscape: Natural versus Human-Induced Effects.” Geomorphology, vol. 252, 2016, pp. 17-31. Schob, David E. "Sodbusting on the Upper Midwestern Frontier, 1820-1860." Agricultural History 47, no. 1 (1973): 47-56. "State's Last Ox Yoke." Omaha World Herald, May 26, 1929. Accessed March 16, 2018. Wishart, David. J. "Encyclopedia of the Great Plains." Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | AGRICULTURE. Accessed April 22, 2018. http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ag.001. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. https://steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/57c3b92572055907be2967d0d4e2732d.jpg dced4ac5255b04a61ce0dacdbb29ba31 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Living in a World of Our Own Making Subject The topic of the resource <a href="http://www.igbp.net/images/18.950c2fa1495db7081ebd1/1421396650502/GreatAcceleration2015igbpsrclowres.jpg" title="IGBP - The Great Acceleration Dashboard" target="_blank">The Great Acceleration</a> <img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4721/40562555551_972c132773_o.jpg" 100="" width="100% height=" /> Description An account of the resource The Anthropocene means “The Age of Humans,” but what does it mean to live in a world of our own making? Humanity has flourished in past two centuries. Two thirds of every person ever born lived between 1945 and today. Scientists call this era of expanding population, economic development, and environmental impact the “Great Acceleration.” People are now more numerous and powerful than ever before. Mining moves more rocks and soils than all of the worlds rivers combined. Artificial fertilizers have doubled the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in our soils. Plastics can now be found on mountain tops and the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Paradoxically, many of the most profound changes to global environments pass virtually unnoticed. Nuclear fallout, for instance, is invisible to the naked eye, but radioactive evidence of cold war weapons tests remains in soils around the world. Until recently, lead was one of the most common materials in industrial use. It was used to seal our foods, paint our homes, and power our cars. Lead is toxic, especially for children. Although invisible, lead is now in our soils, in our cities, and even in our blood. By contrast, concrete is virtually everywhere, yet we rarely think about it. We drive on it, work in it, and the foundations of this very museum are built using it. More than half of the concrete ever produced was manufactured between 1995-2015. Concrete requires enormous energy to mine, transport, and produce. These consequences are as invisible to us as the material is abundant. As you finish your journey through the exhibit, consider how many other “invisible” materials influence our lives and connect us to the global environment. Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Plastic Cup Subject The topic of the resource Omaha has been home to the College World Series since 1950. This great baseball event brings in thousands of fans from across the world every summer. Consumers buy souvenirs like this cup at high volumes to bring home with them from the event. When reused or recycled, consumer plastics like this cup can drastically decrease waste sent to landfills. If patrons throw this cup away, however, its durability ensures long-lasting environmental impact. Up to 79% of plastic waste is disposed in landfills or the environment. Because of this, plastic pollution has a significant negative impact on the environment. Consumer plastic is now a bedrock material of the Anthropocene. Description An account of the resource Since 1967, the College World Series has drawn countless baseball fans from across the country to the streets of Omaha for two weeks every summer. They arrive as consumers both of baseball and the countless products they use, abandon, or take home as souvenirs. One of these objects is a plastic souvenir cup from the 1988 CWS. This plastic cup is not an extraordinary object, however, it is imperative to look beyond the surface and imagine what this object truly represents: the global use of consumer plastic both in Omaha and worldwide. Consumer plastics have had dramatic effects on the environment on both a local and global scale; however, they have also positively contributed to progress toward a more sustainable society. Our object points to the fact that while plastics can embody negative effects of the Anthropocene, they can also exemplify the positive aspects of humanity’s technological and scientific development. Plastic is a polymer; a substance made up of repeating chemical units. As explained by Andrea Sella, a professor at University College London, “you take a simple organic molecule react it with yourself again and again and again, a little bit like a bicycle chain; you attach one link, and you click on the next one and the next one… almost ad infinitum.” (Knight, 2014) Plastics were not the first manufactured polymer, though. While looking for a cheap substitute for ivory for use in billiards balls, John Wesley Hyatt created the first synthetic polymer in 1869. This scientific innovation was the first of its kind, and importantly did not require the contribution of the products directly extracted from natural resources. (SHI, 2016) Humans now had the complete control of the process for the production of plastic polymers. Hyatt’s substance was an early predecessor today’s durable plastic. The more immediate precursors to modern-day plastics were substances retrospectively known as “proto-plastics”, such as vulcanized rubber produced in the mid-19th century. (Fenichell, 1996) During World War II, shortages in rubber, brass and aluminum incentivized the substitution of plastic, which became favored following the war for many of its newfound uses. Plastic production expanded exponentially during and after the war. (Meikle, 1995) During WWII, production of synthetic plastic within the United States of America increased by 300%. (SHI, 2016) Due to its immense popularity and economic potential, companies began investing in plastic research to produce new types of plastics “for their own sake and worried about finding uses for them later.” (SHI, 2016) The consumerist vision of plastic had begun. Innovations of plastics have drastically changed its properties. Modern plastics are now heat resistant, elastic, and can avoid scratches and cracking. These new updates add unknown chemicals to the polymerization process. New societal fears about potential toxicity and easy disposability of plastics have begun to turn plastics use into a cultural and environmental question. (Mossman, 2008) Plastic’s main ingredient is one of the most precious materials on earth: oil. This sought after commodity price has fluctuated greatly through the years, and has affected the progression of plastic research and societal acceptance. (Swallow, 1951) Plastic “combines the ultimate twentieth-century characteristics - artificiality, disposability, and synthesis - all rolled into one.” (Mossman, 2008) American society now has unlimited access to plastic goods ranging from hula-hoops to lawn furniture. Susan Frienkel describes the United States’ obsession with plastic simply. “In product after product, market after market, plastics challenged traditional materials and won, taking the place of steel in cars, paper and glass in packaging, and wood in furniture.” (Freinkel, 2011) Americans integrated plastic into nearly every aspect of their lives and it is now one of the primary materials in American everyday life. The industrial and consumer growth has had profound environmental implications. Environmentalists describe plastic as “one of the most ubiquitous and long lasting recent changes to the surface of our planet.” (Fischer, 2017) The explosion of plastics usage has largely paralleled the exponential growth referred to by Anthropocene scholars as the Great Acceleration. Plastic became common in the 1940s, and its use has increased exponentially ever since. The amount of plastic created in the first ten years of this century is greater than the amount produced in the prior century. (Fischer, 2017) Additionally, numbers skyrocketed between the 20th and 21st centuries. In 2007, 230 million tons of plastic were produced globally. (Mossman, 2008) Consumer demand propelled its production and disposal of this product into a great hindrance upon the global environment. Plastic’s effect upon the earth system is unprecedented. While people can theoretically reuse it, most plastics are created for single-use product, such as disposable water bottles. This has led to incredible amounts of plastics in landfills and the oceans which will remain there unless otherwise removed by humans. Plastics debris found in oceans has rattled the complete acceptance of plastic within American culture. (Meikle, 1997) Plastic objects are held as having three different ends; recycling or reprocessing, thermal destruction which is often done without energy recovery, or disposal in either “a managed system, such as sanitary landfills, or uncontained in open dumps or in the natural environment.” (Geyer, Jambek and Law, 2017) The image of sea life trapped in plastic has achieved iconic status in environmental critiques of consumerism. Additionally, the negative impact of plastics upon the ocean is not limit to its solidified state. Oil, the primary ingredient of plastic, is always a danger to spilling within some of the world’s major bodies of water. This impending risk has become a reality on numerous occasions, hindering and destroying oceanic life as society knows it. Furthermore, scientists have discovered that chemicals used in plastics production are detrimental to humans when absorbed, often through consumption of foods and beverages in plastic packaging. (Fischer, 2017) Some of the commonly used chemicals are hazardous due to their toxicity, sensitization, ability to corrode the skin and eyes, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and teratogenicity. (Wiberg, 1976) All organisms are susceptible to these effect, not just humans. Due to the great penetration of plastics into everyday life of humankind plastics are a negative component of the everyday life of oceanic, avian, and terrestrial animals. (Wallace, 2016) Due to its shear longevity, the negative implications of plastics within the earth system is significant and perpetual. On the other hand, plastic does have many benefits. According to the American Chemistry Council, which is admittedly the research arm of the plastics industry, it is beneficial to the environment. Its high strength-weight ratio allows for lighter packaging, resulting lower fuel usage during transportation of products. It takes two pounds of plastic to create an 8 gallon container. The same container would require three pounds of aluminum, eight pounds of steel, or 27 pounds of glass. (ACC, 2018) Plastic products can often reused, recycled, or reimagined as containers, rug fibers, composite lumber, or new pipe products. (EPA, 2016) Plastics-to-oil, or PTO, production is a process which has recently begun gaining traction as a way to gain use from plastic in situations where it is not feasible to recycle plastics. PTO facilities first heat plastic to a gaseous state and then distill the gas into liquid fuel for sale or further refinement. (ACC, 2014) Researchers who represent the plastics lobby believe PTO facilities could divert 20% of the 32.5 million tons of plastic that enter US landfills each year and turn it into fuel. Plastic is often superior to its substitutes due to superior efficiency, both in terms of money and energy. While plastic began to be widely during WWII due to shortages in other materials, its use continued postwar because for many uses it was cheaper than the original materials. (Meikle, 1995) Plastic use lowers costs for distributors and retailers, thereby lowering the cost of goods packaged in it. (Belasco and Bronner, 2017) A 2010 study conducted by Plastics Europe, a research arm of a plastics lobby, found that the “substitution of plastic products by other materials wherever possible would need about 57% more energy than currently used in the total life cycle of all plastic products today”- the same amount of energy carried by approximately 205 oil tankers. That action would increase would increase annual greenhouse gas emissions by 124 megatons- about the same as Belgium’s total CO₂ emissions in 2000. This is because plastics are less costly to produce and use in terms of energy used. Only 18% of plastic’s energy demand is linked to the period of time the product is being used for its intended purpose relative to an average of 24% for other materials, largely because of its weight savings in packaging and the resulting lowered transportation energy costs. (Denkstatt GmbH, 2010) This is because of plastic’s relatively high strength to weight ratio not found in other common packaging materials. (Andrady and Neal, 2009) These numbers are easily demonstrated in the figure “Life Cycle Energy Consumption of Plastic Products and Their Potential Substitutes” found in the <a href="http://www.steppingintothemap.com/anthropocene/files/original/635cb95b1b7c07aaea81f84d228c9d6d.jpg">Figure 2</a>. It was estimated that the emissions savings of using plastic products in 2007 rather than its substitutes were 5-9 times the emissions used to produce and dispose of plastic. Furthermore, the negative environmental effects of plastics have often been greatly exaggerated; only 1.3% of an average person’s carbon footprint comes from plastic products whereas recreation and leisure accounts for the largest share of the carbon footprint at 18%. (Andrady and Neal, 2009) It is worth noting again that pretty much all benefits research is done on the behalf of plastics lobbies. One might ponder the significance of plastic cup in a history museum, as one should. Could it be the familiarity of the object that makes you question its importance? For most people, a common plastic cup from the 1988 College World Series may not reveal much history. In fact, the true historical value of theses cups is surprisingly within the plastic of which it was made. It’s undeniable that humans see and use plastics in almost every aspect of our lives yet the importance of plastic is often overlooked because of its commonality. Moreover, the history of plastic illustrates an ongoing, interconnected relationship between humans, objects, and nature. In fact, Omaha is a great example of this interconnected relationship as it harks back to when railways were used as means for transporting goods and commodities between the east and west. Think about where this plastic originated (St. Louis, Missouri), how it was made, how was it brought to Omaha, what resources were needed to make it, how it was disposed, and how has nature become affected as a result. Plastic has evolved throughout history in order to better benefit human use. However, it is important to understand that with all benefits come costs. This cup emphasizes the importance of personal awareness that our actions often have unforeseeable consequences on nature. Organizations like “Recycling Green Team” serve to promote the proper disposal of plastic cups and other recyclable objects at sports events. (NRDC, 2014) Individual efforts and the acceptance of accountability has shown significant improvement in the amount plastic being recycled. However, more is required, as in 2010 41% of the waste collected from the Douglas County landfill could have been recycled instead. (Sierra Club, 2017) Humans undeniably cause damage to nature, yet our current preservation and understanding of our involvement highlights the importance of sustainability in the survival of the human race. Consumer plastic has left an immense footprint upon the foundation of the local and global environment. It has negatively impacted the environment through factory emissions, pollution of oceans, and longevity within landfills. This problem persists today, even with stronger recycling efforts in place. The overproduction of plastics, such as our College World Series collectible cup, is a byproduct of our consumerist society. Though there are many costs associated with the production, distribution, and waste of plastic, there have also been great societal benefits as well. The advancement of humanity’s technological and scientific development has helped countless lives across the world. When used with intention, plastic may help reduce waste created and slow the progression of human induced pollution. Awareness is imperative in this potential change. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Emily Newcomb Duncan Riley Craig Schmerbach Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived American Chemistry Council. Economic Impact of Plastics-To-Oil Facilities in the US. (American Chemistry Council, Oct. 2014). Accessed February 27, 2018. plastics.americanchemistry.com/Product-Groups-and-Stats/Plastics-to-Fuel/Economic-Impact-of-Plastics-to-Oil-Facilities-in-the-United-States-Full-Study.pdf. Andrady, Anthony L., and Mike A. 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