City of Memphis Gifts Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium to the University of Memphis

[NT80]

7 hours ago, SilverEagle said:

It seems that just about every state school that was founded around 1900 started out as a Teachers school. Especially in the rural areas of the U.S. 

This is true.  As the U.S. population and land borders (states) expanded westward in the mid to late 1800's, the government was concerned with lawlessness out west.  The thought was a more educated society is a more law-abiding society.  But finding enough qualified teachers or getting teachers to move from the east (even with large incentives) was difficult.  Thus governments decided we needed more teacher colleges to train more teachers for the expanding country.

[Arkstfan]

On 1/2/2024 at 11:25 AM, SilverEagle said:

It seems that just about every state school that was founded around 1900 started out as a Teachers school. Especially in the rural areas of the U.S. 

Teacher college or agriculture 

 

[Arkstfan]

22 hours ago, NT80 said:

This is true.  As the U.S. population and land borders (states) expanded westward in the mid to late 1800's, the government was concerned with lawlessness out west.  The thought was a more educated society is a more law-abiding society.  But finding enough qualified teachers or getting teachers to move from the east (even with large incentives) was difficult.  Thus governments decided we needed more teacher colleges to train more teachers for the expanding country.

Likewise it was becoming clear that there was an incredibly serious risk that we could not feed ourself as a nation. 

There were no chemical fertilizers that were cost effective until the Harber-Bosch process was developed. Until then there were only organic fertilizers that were cost effective and mining of guano was a major industry. Fun trivia. During WWII the US laid claim to a number of small islands in the Pacific as potential bases. Several of them it turned out that US had actually claimed as territory in the 19th century because there were deep layers of hardened bird crap that were mined to use as fertilizer.

Soil exhaustion was a critical issue. Erosion was a major crisis that finally came to a head during the severe drought that clobbered the Plains states and much of the south during the 1930's with some areas being in a drought for 8 years which led to the dust bowl.

Norman Borlaug gave us the third key to food security (along with proper land management and chemical fertilizers) by developing the better strands of wheat that produced more grain per stalk and were more resistant to adverse weather.

In span of basically 30-40 years the US went from struggling to feed itself to being a huge exporter of food.

Along with teachers colleges and agriculture colleges, mechanical arts or engineering became a major function as the Industrial Revolution evolved into the modern assembly line and rapid product development especially consumer goods.

It is really amazing that in the span less than forty years the US survived two major wars, three periods of food shortages, a deadly flu epidemic, an economic disaster that had as much as 25% unemployment and rode through most of it with a sense of optimism and community.

[SilverEagle]

On 1/3/2024 at 5:47 PM, Arkstfan said:

Likewise it was becoming clear that there was an incredibly serious risk that we could not feed ourself as a nation. 

There were no chemical fertilizers that were cost effective until the Harber-Bosch process was developed. Until then there were only organic fertilizers that were cost effective and mining of guano was a major industry. Fun trivia. During WWII the US laid claim to a number of small islands in the Pacific as potential bases. Several of them it turned out that US had actually claimed as territory in the 19th century because there were deep layers of hardened bird crap that were mined to use as fertilizer.

Soil exhaustion was a critical issue. Erosion was a major crisis that finally came to a head during the severe drought that clobbered the Plains states and much of the south during the 1930's with some areas being in a drought for 8 years which led to the dust bowl.

Norman Borlaug gave us the third key to food security (along with proper land management and chemical fertilizers) by developing the better strands of wheat that produced more grain per stalk and were more resistant to adverse weather.

In span of basically 30-40 years the US went from struggling to feed itself to being a huge exporter of food.

Along with teachers colleges and agriculture colleges, mechanical arts or engineering became a major function as the Industrial Revolution evolved into the modern assembly line and rapid product development especially consumer goods.

It is really amazing that in the span less than forty years the US survived two major wars, three periods of food shortages, a deadly flu epidemic, an economic disaster that had as much as 25% unemployment and rode through most of it with a sense of optimism and community.

Well Hollywood in the 30's helped a lot with that. People were looking for an escape from their reality, and Hollywood came through for them....big time.

Also, crime in the west was not as much of a concern as the crime rate in general in the US. Horace Greely's encouragement to "go west young man" was an much an effort to push the socially unacceptable people living in the cities, out into the wide open spaces away from the citizens that were burdened by their dysfunctional behaviors, as anything else. Maybe they would become successful......or maybe they would fall victim to indians and the elements.

Social thinkers, and/or what we would call "influencers" of that time pondered the problem and came up with a solution. They all noticed that most of the crime commited in the US was by people who had no formal education. They pronounced the educated class in America as the most moral and upstanding of people. They declared that an educated man would be a more moral citizen of the US. SO, they got behind an increase in construction of more Colleges, mainly teacher's colleges, thus giving more of the citizens an opportunity to formally improve themselves. 

All of this sounded good, and a lot of money was poured into new colleges so that more Americans would have the opportunity to formalize their good moral character with a higher education.

Then in 1924, what was called the "crime of the century" took place. The case of Leopold and Loeb....Leopold and Loeb - Wikipedia. Turns out that the educated/intellectual man wasn't so moral after all. I'm sure all those social thinkers/influencers were sitting at their breakfast tables reading the headlines and pulling their hair out.