Life and Loss in Two American Towns
Far From Home
by Ron Powers
Lisa Weishaar
23 Sep 03
Purpose
Provide class with a brief overview “…of
America at its best and its worst; and of
the choices we still have to make about
the quality and conditions of our lives,
choices we must make before they are
made for us.”
Agenda
About the Author
 Rural/Urban Transformation
 Cairo, Illinois
 Kent, Connecticut
 Conclusion
 Questions

About the Author
(1 of 2)

Ron Powers:
– A former on-air columnist for CBS Sunday
Morning
– Won Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1973
– Lives in Middlebury, Vermont
About the Author
(2 of 2)
“Ron Powers is a wise and brilliant
commentator on American life. In Far
from Home, his cautionary tale of two
towns, he cuts to the quick of this nation
in mesmerizing narrative that will
become a classic of its kind.”
---Jay Parini
Rural-Urban Transformation
(1 of 9)
American innocence = the Town
 Man, farm, town, city
 Americans love their towns

Rural-Urban Transformation
(2 of 9)
“The urban trend, whether we like it or
not, is undeniable” (Robert Moses,
1956)
 Industry, technology, & world war
diminished the importance of the
American town

Rural-Urban Transformation
(3 of 9)
In 1932, it was reported that the
automobile “had erased the boundaries
which formally separated urban from
rural territory…”
 The paved highway initiated the classic
American progression from farm to town
to city

Rural-Urban Transformation
(4 of 9)
“Many an American small town or village is no
longer a community. Too often it is only a
small city, the citizens largely going their
individual ways. This progressive
disappearance of the community in presentday life is one of the most disturbing
phenomena of modern history. It constitutes
an historical crisis.”
--Arthur Morgan, Sociologist, 1942
Rural-Urban Transformation
(5 of 9)
“There are two rural Americas, one is real and
one is imagined.”
--Darryl Hobbs, Prof of Rural Sociology
The imagined rural America is the stuff
of national myth
 The real one, is less pleasing

Rural-Urban Transformation
(6 of 9)
Rural environments appear to be in
danger of inevitable extinction
 Statistics:

– 1880’s:
• Ag/Manufacturing-86%
• Urban/Info-Age-2%
– 2000 (projected):
• Ag/Manufacturing-24%
• Urban/Info-Age-66%
Rural-Urban Transformation
(7 of 9)
Transformations accelerated in the
1980’s
 Drop in farm prices shut down town
after town across the Midwest
 Lost 3% of population 1980-1986

Rural-Urban Transformation
(8 of 9)

Kansas was on the brink
– 600 small towns, 532 had fewer than 2500
– After Civil War symbol of prosperity

Changed in the 80’s
– Grain/oil prices/land values diminished
– Young people left towns and farms for jobs
in Wichita
– Remaining population, 15% over age of 65
Rural-Urban Transformation
(9 of 9)

Kansas State University proposed a
radical strategy of rescue called “triage”
– Promote the use of public funds for towns
between 2500-5000
– Towns under 2500 would survive the best
they could or die

“Atrophy & Hyperprosperity”
– Those who loved their towns, were the
agents of their doom
Cairo, Illinois
(1 of 2)

General Background
– Once a riverboat port
– Race riots in the 60’s
– Industry fled and town became destitute
– Richard “Doc” Poston, an expert in
community development is hired
Operation Enterprise
 Quinstate Forum

Cairo, Illinois
(2 of 2)

Historical Significance
– The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
– Grant’s army barracks at Ft Defiance
Kent, Connecticut
(1 of 3)

General Background
– Condominium developers & exurban
weekenders
– Outside money found the town
– Total disregard for its pastoral beauty and
small-town traditions

Henry Kissinger and the destruction of
the blueberry bushes
Kent, Connecticut
(2 of 3)
Town vs the “outsiders”
 1950s when wave of 1st “summer
people” came to Kent
 As years went on, more and more
newcomers trickled into Kent
 Gradual conversion from “weekenders”
to permanent residents
 Planning and Zoning began in 1960s

Kent, Connecticut
(3 of 3)
Real Estate dominated the town’s
political life, defined it’s social classes
 Kent School

– Prep boarding institution
– Selling several buildings, acreage:
$12,000,000
• Propose 350 dwelling units

Kent Grange
Conclusion
Doc Poston still searching for the savior
of Cairo—not gambling, but commercial
attraction based on heritage
 Recession in New England states

“As the towns and farm communities
languished, American cities, where most of
the rural population drifted, seemed locked
into an irreversible, murderous slide towards
chaos and barbarism.”
Questions??