Continuity and Change in the Willamette Valley Essay -- United States

Continuity and Change in the Willamette Valley From the 1830s until the turn of the ordinal century, the Willamette Valley in Oregon was populated by people who migrated in that location from throughout the United States and the world. One group that came in large metrical composition was the yeoman farm families of the Midwest, who migrated to the Willamette Valley during the 1830s and 1840s seeking peeled land and tenacity in their way of life. Another group that came in large verse were Chinese migrant employers who came to the Willamette Valley after the Civil War, who came seeking work and continuity in their way of life. As the two groups pursued their cause goals, interacted with each other, and tried to preserve their ways of life, both groups were changed forever, and a new culture was formed. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, the people living in the river valleys of the western United States experienced an economic depression, floods, and the spread of diseases such as flu and malaria. At this time, newspapers, pamphlets, lectures, and sermons had begun to spread word of the rich soil and healthful modality of the Willamette Valley in western Oregon (Jeffrey 27). As Oregon febrility spread, it was the lure of the land that drew many yeoman farm families to live 2,000 miles for a fresh start in Oregon. These small, independent farmers desired not land for lands sake, but land as a place to lay down and provide for themselves and their families for generations (May 24). Yeoman culture was family-centered and the roles of men and women were distinct and interlocking. Husbands and wives were determined to be given their culture and ideology to Oregon and to recreate the world of their parents as they launch a new... ...d, and society in the American West. unseasoned York Cambridge University Press, 1994.McClellan, Robert. The Heathen Chinese A Study of American Attitudes toward China, 1890-1905. Columbus Ohio State Univers ity Press, 1971.Pan, Lynn. Sons of the Yellow emperor A news report of the Chinese Diaspora. Boston Little, Brown and Co., 1990.Scott, H. W. History of Portland Oregon. siege of Syracuse D. Mason and Co., 1890.Seward, George F. Chinese Immigration Its Social and Economical Aspects. New York Charles Scribners Sons, 1881.Steeves, Sarah Hunt. Book of Remembrance of Marion County, Oregon, Pioneers, 1840-1860. Portland The Berncliff Press, 1927.Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore A History of Asian Americans. Boston Little, Brown and Co., 1989.Whitney, James A. The Chinese and the Chinese Question. New York Tibbals Book Company, 1888.