Live Blog of the Gateway History Conference

Greetings. I will be live blogging the conference. Apologies for any typos or half truths, as I've been updating this on my phone as I'm running around the conference. 

Clark Kidder speaking about Orphan Trains

Clark Kidder officially began the conference with a great question: how many of you have a relative who came out on the Orphan Train? We had two raise their hand.

One interesting photo in Kidder's presentation is the only known interior shot of a train. Kidder's presentation is quite impressive as he relies on diaries and letters to give voices to the "orphans." As you can probably guess, many of these orphans were not orphans. 

Kidder shared a great story to show the struggles of children to grasp with the emotional turmoil of living in the orphanage. A great comparison between a child getting in trouble over asking about vanilla and a child's response to seeing her mother at the orphanage one last time. She sent her mother a letter after the meeting. The letter went unanswered and the child was sent west. 

Reverend Clark, a key figure in the life of Kidder's great grandmother's adoption of I heard right, is worth a Google or better yet check out Clark's book. A really interesting letter from Clark showed the most important request for a child: a girl who will be able to go to events and not tan! Clark noticed they just wanted a doll to show off and with one transgression, back to New York! Trust me Clark and through Kidder is able to make the adoption process come alive. 

One of the things on the tan line though is what a euphemism for make sure she is white! 

Clark Kidder's grandmother

First session is over. The next one is on Early Iowa history. 

Session One started with a stark video on the loss of Native American land and thus the growth of American ownership:land grab.

In 100 years from 1776-1876,  the U.S. used nearly 400 treaties and orders to take possession ofNative  American land. Bill Sherman is focusing on the nine treaties that forced Native Americans out of Iowa. 

Bill Sherman outlining the nine treaties that removed the Native Americans from Iowa

Bill Sherman is going through the treaties. Quite impressive to see all the treaties presented one after another. 

A great fact is on average America "paid" Native Americans .08 cents per acre for their land compared to roughly 3.5 cents per acre to France. 

Russ Fry's session is on the fate of Blackhawk's body. All I heard was someone took Blackhawk's head and that got my attention. I sense a great book about Blackhawk and Lincoln's bodies! The big difference is Blackhawk's bones were successfully stolen and moved around. 

Russ is spending a great amount of time showing how typical histories show that Blackhawk's bones were lost in a fire in 1853, not 1855 like is often said. That isn't a juicy story so the real story is that Blackhawk's bones were never destroyed in the fire. 

To find out what did happen to his bones, got to check out his book. The true twist is Russ knows the location but he will not disclose the location out of the request of the tribe.

Next in the session on Early History is Jan Hansen speaking on the Springdale cemetery in Clinton. The first grave was 1858. 

Jan went through all the mausoleums in Springdale. Definitely head down to the Historical Museum to check out more. For example there is one Confederate buried.

Session 3 began with Lisa from the Swedish Center who talked about local Swedish immigrants. New Sweden, Iowa was the first permanent Swedish settlement. 

From an attendant on Lisa's presentation: We arrived just in time for the speaker about Black Hawk's final resting place. Our main interested today was Session 2. I was thrilled with the presenter about Swedish immigration. And further overjoyed that the first settlement she mentioned was "New Sweden" Iowa. We visited there just last weekend and had the emotional experience of visiting the graves of many of my ancestors. So her topic was very timely and interesting for me. Thank you for hosting this event.

Some great insights into the forces of immigration and what it took to settle in America. Not just facing cultural forces, the early settlers had to face cholera and failed crops. 

Lisa had a fun story that instead of the train conductor yelling out Moline, they yelled out John Deere. 

Kelly from the German American Heritage Center is talking about the German immigrants in the Quad Cities. 7 million Germans came to America. The bridge in Davenport made Davenport a hub for immigrants coming west as no longer did they have to go down to New Orleans and upwards. Once again a great look into the push/pull factors causing Germans to immigrate.  

Kelly Lao talking about the German Heritage Center and the history of German immigrants in the Gateway region. 

No surprise that immigrants grew the Quad Cities from a couple dozens to 16,000. Another interesting point was Iowa was the first state to outlaw the German language. Plus check out the effects of Prohibition on Germans in the Quad Cities.  

The last presenter before lunch were actually presenters. Barb and Jane of a Fulton talked about the Dutch immigration to Fulton. Barb thankfully led with why Fulton's immigration was different than Pella and Holland, MI. 

Dutch people came to Fulton from Michigan. He visited Fulton once and went back to Michigan. There he sold his interests in Michigan and came to Fulton. Then six other gentlemen from Michigan soon followed. Of all names, the first Dutch immigrant was Thomas 

Smith.!

Session three has begun at 2pm. The session is about religion. Steve Barleen is the speaker to kick it off. Barleen spoke about Billy Sunday. A great introduction on the liquor interests who were portrayed as saloon keepers who tried to reel in young men and corrupt them.

Why saloons and why did ministers fight saloons? Urbanization, industrialization, and immigration became identified in the evils of a saloon. His focus though is on Billy Sunday. 

Steve Barleen talking about Billy Sunday 

Billy Sunday in the 1880's played for the White Stockings, known as the Cubs now. One crazy stat that in I believe Muscatine there was a saloon for every 66 men of age. 

Random feature of bars I never knew: towels attached to the bar to wipe the beards of the male bar consumer. Also, in some bars, they had a trough to urinate in so a hard working class man didn't even have to leave the bar to relieve himself. 

An interesting connection with the lumber industry is that when Billy Sunday visited Muscatine, the meeting place was Mussers Sash factory. 

Gary Herrity began the second part of the religion session and kicked off a look at Clinton's five Carholic churches.

The last panel session focuses on the economy of the Gateway area. The Fulton group focused on Langford & Hall mill in Fulton, which was right across the river from our museum in the late 

1800's. 

A great presentation on the sawmill industry in Fulton which is a good addition to our sawmill identity. 

Barb Mask told a wonderful narrative about the Lincoln Highway and Fulton. Fulton was chosen because it was the shortest distance between Chicago and the river. Related, bridges! 

The highway came in on 15th Avenue and turned on 10th Avenue.

The conferences has ended with the award winning documentary: Country School: One Room, One Nation.