Scottish Highland Clearances (1: the problem)

[Dreamwoven]

John Prebble has written three books about this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prebble#Fire_and_Sword_Trilogy. I have all three of these books and read them with interest. They cover the Battle of Culloden, where the clan system was defeated by the firepower of the Royal Artillery, and was the last attempt by the Scots to win power on the Field of Battle. Known by his enemies as "Butcher Cumberland" he successfully ruled Scotland with an iron hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_William,_Duke_of_Cumberland. A Hanoverian by origin, he expressed his disdain for the Scots "Nothing but fire and sword can cure their cursed, vicious ways of thinking" (Prebble, Culloden, p. 287). The second book by Prebble is Glencoe, where the MacDonalds were slaughtered with the help of the Campbells and their settlement burned out. The third book is The Highland Clearanceswhich is the main subject of this post.

This is the story of the introduction of the new breed of sheep, the Cheviot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheviot_sheep into Northern Scotland. Hardy and well-suited to the Scottish Highlands, it quickly became a popular source of income and wealth to the Scottish lairds. http://www.cheviotsheep.org.

The problem with this was that the crofters who lived all over the north of Scotland suddenly became redundant. Sheep needed only an overseer for each "herd", a sheepherder, so the large landowner found that there was no need for crofters. How the large estates became quit of their tenant crofters quite suddenly became a problem.

[Dreamwoven]

2. The Solution
"The economics are quite simple. The Highlands of Scotland may sell, at present, perhaps from £200,000 to £300,000 worth lean cattle. The same ground will produce twice as much mutton, and there is wool into the bargain...Whereas the same ground under the Cheviot, or True Mountain breed, will produce at least £900,000 of fine wool." (Prebble, [I]The Highland Clearances[I/] p.28). This was a bonanza, a manyfold increase in the value of the land, making the owners rich almost beyond belief. The crofters could not compete with this, though they were tied to the land by virtue of personal attachment, going back many generations.

But the crofters did not own the land, just rented it from the laird. The best would be to remove the tenants and put the entire property to sheepherding under the Cheviot. The tenant crofters were a hindrance to maximising profitability. They tried to negotiate an increase in rents they could manage, but this was greatly exceeded by the value of the land under the Cheviot. So the tenant population would have to go. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances, for a more detailed analysis. It does not make pleasant reading. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances#Poetry, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances#Memorials_to_the_Clearances.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances#Landlord_debt, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances#Overpopulation.

Many poor succumbed to disease, notably cholera, and starvation. Others migrated to the New World. So in the long run no-one benefitted.

[Dreamwoven]

It is well worthwhile reading the entire Wikipedia post on the Highland Clearances, there is just too much for me to include here.

[Dreamwoven]

It is well worthwhile reading the entire Wikipedia post on the Highland Clearances, there is just too much for me to include here.

[Dreamwoven]

Prebble's book on the Highland Clearances (1972 p. 304) ends with the following comment:

"At Culloden and during the military occupation of the glens the British government first defeated a tribal uprising and then destroyed the society that had made it possible. The exploitation of the country during the next 100 years was within the same pattern of colonial development - new economies introduced for the greater wealth of the few and the unproductive population removed or reduced. In the beginning the men who imposed the change were of the same blood, tongue and family as the people. They used the advantages given them by the old society, to profit from the new but in the end they were gone with their clans.

The lowlander has inherited the hills and the tartan is a shroud."

[Dreamwoven]

In the 5 years I spent in Aberdeen I noticed that the Highlands and Islands - Skye, the Grampians, the Hebrides, - were depopulated. And though I was familiar with the Prebble Trilogy I had nothing to compare my experience with. Years later when we moved to Southern Norrland I could compare the rural landscape with Sweden, which had not experienced the massive importation of cheviot sheep, and so had had a more traditional rural background.

I was struck by the way Swedish rural life was impacted by the small water-driven saw mills that dot the landscape, and that are still very visible today. The introduction of the Bessemer Process created demand for steel and iron, and shifted the process of industrialisation to the larger urban centres, also in Sweden. Of course, de-population is characteristic for Southern Norrland as the local urban areas still draw much of their workers from the rural areas. But the highly centralised land-ownership by the lairds meant that they determined the centralised development of rural industry, and it was this that made for a big difference between Sweden and Highland Scotland.

[Dreamwoven]

"The land once belonged to the people, and their tribal society had been patriarchal. The chief was Ceann-cinnidh the founder of the tribe or the tea of the clan, and he and it in a mystic unity of blood. In time, and with the authority of law, the chief made the land his, but because they were closer to the past than he, the people
spoke of the earth as "our land". When they walked from it to the emigrant ships, it was not always the chief's rights in Law that they were obeying, but his ancient authority as Ceann-cinnidh. And when they defied him it was because they felt he had betrayed the trust of his clanna, his children.(Prebble The Highland Clearances" "p.129).

[Dreamwoven]

Prebble gives a couple of examples of the "encouraging and deceptive prose" that was used. This is one of them (Prebble The Highland Clearances pp. 191-192):

"A substantial coppered fast sailing ship will be ready to receive passengers at Fort William on the 10th of June and sail for Pictou and Canada on the 20th.

All those who wish to emigrate to these parts in Summer will find this an excellent opportunity, as every attention will be paid to the comfort of Passengers, and they may depend on the most utmost punctuality as to the date of sailing.

For particulars, application may be made to Mr. John Grant, merchant in Fort William."

[Dreamwoven]

The main purpose of this advertisement is to increase applications to travel to the New World. Attempts to provide more useful information were not accepted by the shipping company. Nor was the threat of starvation from delays in reaching the destination, nor the high rates of illness from overcrowded ships taken into account. The Highland and Islands Emigration Society complained and pressed for some control of what was published, but to no avail. See ch. 4 "The White-sailed Ships"

[Dreamwoven]

In their eagerness to put as much land as possible under sheep, the evictions were stepped up and the crofts pulled down, sometimes when the inhabitants were still inside! See pp.277 "under the orders of Grant (the Factor) the inhabitants of 4 townships were cleared from their homes, even those who had refused to leave. "The inmates were ordered out, the thatch was pulled off, picks were stuck into the walls, the levers removed the foundations, axes cut the couple trees, and then roof, rafters and walls fell in with a crash...men, women and children stood at a distance completely dismayed. From house to house, hut to hut and barn to barn the Factor and his menials proceeded".

[Dreamwoven]

The last chapter (6: where are the Highlanders?) became a pertinent question when the clan chiefs were looking for men to take the King's Shilling - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_shilling in the 1850s when British troops were preparing to fight in the Crimea. The lairds were surprised at how little interest there was. John Maclachlan of Rahoy:

""On an April morning I no longer hear
birdsong or the lowing of cattle on the moor.
I hear the unpleasant noise of sheep
and the English language, dogs barking
and frightening the deer."

[Dreamwoven]

Prebble p.302)
"When the recruiters left the highlands, without the men they had hoped for, Donald Ross jeered at the astonished landlords. Let them bring out their cooks and their housemaids with pokers and broomsticks, and their flunkies and coachmen with switches and pitchforks!" But the young men of Sutherland, remembering their ancestors and those few of their kin who were dying of cholera and cold before Sebastopol, did not wish it to be thought that they were cowards. They called a public meeting and drew up an address to the newspapers.
"We have no country to fight for, as our glens and straths are laid desolate, and we have no wives nor children to defend as we are forbidden to have them. We are not allowed to marry without the consent of the factor, the ground officer being always ready to report every case of marriage, and the result would be banishment from the country. Our land has been taken from us and gives to sheep farmers, and we are denied any portion of them, and when we apply for such, or even the site for a house, we are told that we should leave the country. For these wrongs and oppressions, as well as for others which we have long and patiently endured, we are resolved that there should be nonvolunteers or recruits from Sutherlandshire. Yet we assert that we are as willing as our forefathers to peril life and limb in defence of our Queen and our country were our wrongs and long endured oppressions redressed, wrongs that will be remembered in Sutherlandshire by every true Highlander as long as grass grows and water runs."

[Dreamwoven]

In just 50 years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars where the clansmen had fought so well and the war against Russia in the Crimea, the lairds succeeded in being rid of their problematic tenants, who stood in the way of the large profits to be made from the Cheviot sheep. They were dispersed over the world, against their own will and desperately clinging to the doorposts of their homes. Their fingers had to be prised off the doorposts before the evictions could be done.

Now when the glens had been so thoroughly emptied the lairds went out with bags of gold to recruit new soldiers, but failed utterly to raise, literally, more than one man. "Where are the highlanders?" they asked in London, a thousand miles south of Sutherland shire. The quote in the preceding post was the embittered response they got.

So what happened to the lairds´ dream of riches? They made a lot of money out of the Cheviot sheep, but spent it all on the high life in homes in Edinburgh and in London. And it did not last. Just 50 years later Australian wool began pouring into Britain. It was all for nought. The people had gone, leaving the valleys and hills bare of people. No sheep, no clansmen for war, no wealth. It was a well-deserved fate for the greed of the lairds...But it also left future generations to bear silent witness to the results.

[Dreamwoven]

In just 50 years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars where the clansmen had fought so well and the war against Russia in the Crimea, the lairds succeeded in being rid of their problematic tenants, who stood in the way of the large profits to be made from the Cheviot sheep. They were dispersed over the world, against their own will and desperately clinging to the doorposts of their homes. Their fingers had to be prised off the doorposts before the evictions could be done.

Now when the glens had been so thoroughly emptied the lairds went out with bags of gold to recruit new soldiers, but failed utterly to raise, literally, more than one man. "Where are the highlanders?" they asked in London, a thousand miles south of Sutherland shire. The quote in the preceding post was the embittered response they got.

So what happened to the lairds´ dream of riches? They made a lot of money out of the Cheviot sheep, but spent it all on the high life in homes in Edinburgh and in London. And it did not last. Just 50 years later Australian wool began pouring into Britain. It was all for nought. The people had gone, leaving the valleys and hills bare of people. No sheep, no clansmen for war, no wealth. It was a well-deserved fate for the greed of the lairds...But it also left future generations to bear silent witness to the results.

[Dreamwoven]

PompeyBum remind me in a message about crofts. We in fact live in one, so that was a useful reminder to me to write about it, however limited. its a small house, surrounded by pine forest.

[Dreamwoven]

I am re-reading a thin book I have on Old Aberdeen: Bishops, Burghers and Buildings (1991, edited by John S. Smith). Aberdeen has one of Scotland's oldest universities. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Scotland. Oldest is St Andrews, followed by Glasgow, then Aberdeen. It has 2 colleges, Old Aberdeen (Kings, founded in 1495) and a newer College in Central Aberdeen (Marischal College)_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marischal_College, which is the largest granite building in Scotland. The Sociology Department, where I was, is still in Old Aberdeen. I spent a lot of time walking about the Auld Toon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Aberdeen#King.27s_College_and_Old_Aberdeen_cam pus

[Pompey Bum]

PompeyBum remind me in a message about crofts. We in fact live in one, so that was a useful reminder to me to write about it, however limited. its a small house, surrounded by pine forest.

Very interesting, DW. Do you mean in Sweden? Is it an old historical house or an architectural style (a "crofter's cottage")? It's sad how little people remember the suffering of the Scottish people under the croft system. (My tablet's predictive spelling is pretty sure I'm trying to say crochet). It's sad how few have heard of the Highland Clearances for that matter. Maybe these things are remembered in Europe--I don't know. Few have heard of them over here.

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, they have crofter cottages here too, but not the class system to do what happen in Scotland.

John Prebble learned of them while in Canada, from Scottish settlers. Though with time the memory fades, and next generation is likely to forget altogether. But then that is why Prebble wrote the books, to preserve the record.

[Pompey Bum]

I just learned that the croft system was originally intended as a way to sustain populations during the Highland Clearences. I thought it was much older--it just seems so damned Medieval. It also survives in parts of Scotland today, although there is more security over one's tenancy now. Still, it's amazing that such an ugly wart hasn't been burned away yet. On the other hand, the de facto perpetual debt of the 19th century crofters reminds me a little of the mortgage/educational loan/car loan/kids educational loan/perpetual credit card debt that keeps Americans in hock to the banks for most of their lives. Our lifestyles are better than the crofters' were, but the bank is still the laird. So maybe it's more of a historical tumor than a wart--malignant and hard to get rid of.

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, today the croft is part of the home-ownership system. In Sweden we own our croft debt-free. It is small and with the minimal amenities, so appreciates quite slowly and is just used as a home, the croft land may be kept up but rarely with the intensity of the old-style subsistence crofters.

[Dreamwoven]

I met Kerstin in Edinburgh, we married and moved to the USA, Minnesota University, where I was going to do a Ph.D. in symbolic interaction. That was in 1971. But there was only a first year course in symbolic interaction, so we came back to Europe, and I eventually got my doctorate in symbolic interaction from Gothenburg University. Anyway, being in Aberdeen I had a good look round Old Aberdeen, so saw many of the older streets which were named after the craftsmen who lived there in the old days (like Wrights and Coopers Place - https://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/200355591-aberdeen-old-aberdeen-4-wrights-and-coopers-place-aberdeen, where the original barrel-makers lived. Barrels were then the main form of transporting and storing ale, as well as fish (in Scotland, herring was the main kind of fish) and other consumer goods that could be salted before being barrelled.

Links:
This coloured map with images of the main Old Aberdeen landmarks - St Machar's Cathedral, the Botanical Gardens, King's College, the Town House, and the Brig o' Balgownie is probably all most people would be interested in - but anyone interested in Medieval History will find this link interesting.
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/documents/old_aberdeen_trail.pdf

Old Aberdeen remains a major tourist attraction for those interested in the rise of a university town.

See also:
https://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/200355591-aberdeen-old-aberdeen-4-wrights-and-coopers-place-aberdeen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercat_cross

[Danik 2016]

That must be the source of your interest in Scottish history.

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, it certainly is. That entire course, including John Prebble's lectures on the Highland Clearances was a transforming event for me.

[Pompey Bum]

Yes, today the croft is part of the home-ownership system. In Sweden we own our croft debt-free. It is small and with the minimal amenities, so appreciates quite slowly and is just used as a home, the croft land may be kept up but rarely with the intensity of the old-style subsistence crofters.

Interesting as always, DW. One could say, I suppose, that in Sweden the state has become the new laird (as opposed to the banks in America). Still the security of a debt-free croft must be reassuring. Over here, it is quite possible own a home and live without debt (unless you count tax, which is probably much higher in a country like Sweden). But it requires years of mortgage payments and careful discipline with credit cards and other kinds of debt. But there is a genuine feeling of freedom when you get there.

[Dreamwoven]

Well in Sweden you only need to look north of Stockholm and be prepared to move into Gästrikland, or even further if necessary. I had a stroke at the time and Kerstin looked north, finding this croft, bought it. Most of my savings went into increasing my pension. This was in 2010, getting on for 9 years ago, we were lucky also with the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) that the Federal Government adopted, so my pension has not been eaten way by inflation...My wife consulted with me frequently before buying.

Of course , in the US you would have to look for somewhere in northern Canada to be able to buy anything, a bit like us going north to Norrland. But w are both older so that is possible for us, we don't have jobs that tie us down. We all know that ZIRP won't last for ever, so it is a matter of being economically cautious. But many are not like that, they gamble with their futures. ZIRP will likely ruin many when it comes to an end.

[Pompey Bum]

Actually, affordability here varies from state to state and especially from town to town. You don't have to go to severely cold states to get cheap, but there are some excellent tax breaks there. Still, there are great prices in states like New Mexico and parts of Texas, where it's hot and arid. I live in the relatively cold Northeast, and the prices are outrageous. It's hard to generalize about America because there's always someplace different.

[Dreamwoven]

That was interesting. Pompey. Learned something there about America.

[Pompey Bum]

Thanks, DW. I always learn so much from your interesting posts (and life). :)

[Dreamwoven]

There are at least 2 books on Old Aberdeen, the one mentioned above and one on Mediaeval Aberdeen, also edited by J. S. Smith. The site of Old Aberdeen was based on St. Machar's Cathedral and the Canonry (where the Canons lived) which was higher ground as was the Town House and the Square it was built on. More land needed to be drained and given oak timber foundations as a basis for construction. King's College, with its Open Crown, was also in this area, as were the staff and students of the college.

Many of the merchants lived southward of this, and can be recognised by the names of the streets. I have already mentioned Wrights and Coopers Place, and there were many others too. So the town spread southwards towards New Aberdeen in a ribbon development (see post #21 and check the map!).

[Dreamwoven]

I have not been able to find a map of Old Aberdeen as it was at the time of the founding of the college, but there is such a map at this link: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/documents/old_aberdeen_trail.pdf. You will need to scroll down to get to the map.

[Dreamwoven]

The most recent building at King's is the Sir Duncan Rice Library, opened in 2011. See http://www.urbanrealm.com/news/3770/...ly_opened.html

[Dreamwoven]

There is a good video of this new library here: https://dawnoftheunread.wordpress.com/tag/sir-duncan-rice-library/ also showing other parts of the campus.

[Dreamwoven]

Like my parents I am not religious, yet I love to visit old churches, as well as ruins like Dunnottar Castle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnottar_Castle, south of Aberdeen. I decided I would become a Friend of Exeter Cathedral, so I took out life-membership. I still receive news from the Friends, some 25 years after joining. I am glad I did as I am now too frail to visit Britain. I also have the two coloured booklets of St. Machar's Cathedral (with its fine Oak ceiling decorated with Heraldic Shields) and King's College topped by its Imperial Crown, both part of Aberdeen University.

[Dreamwoven]

One lecturer at Aberdeen was Geoff Sharp, who taught symbolic interaction and was greatly appreciated by many of us. He also taught us about John Prebble's work that comprise the earlier posts in this thread. I went with him into Old Aberdeen for a half pint (not more, I couldn't take pints, they blew me up something awful). His teaching of symbolic interaction greatly inspired me, and after he left we left in 1981, too. I applied to U.S. Sociology Departments and got in to Minnesota University. They had several symbolic interactionists there, Don Martindale, Steve Spitzer, but the Head of Department was George Bohrnstedt, who was introducing advanced statistical methods in place of symbolic interaction. I got poor marks on methods but a straight A on Symbolic Interaction. There is a good book on the events in Minnesota Sociology and I will try to put together a discussion of this book. "The Romance of a Profession: a case history in the sociology of sociology" Intercontinental Press, (1986) by Don Martindale.

There is a brief thread on Symbolic Interaction on this forum. I may include it there. We left after the first year, I explained that I had come to do Symbolic Interaction and if there were no more courses in that, I would leave, which I did. The journal Symbolic Interaction was founded in 1986, probably not a coincidence! But too late for me.

[Dreamwoven]

I have a blog on Symbolic Interaction https://wordpress.com/view/socialconstr.wordpress.com, that regularly gets lots of visits. Someone must be using it in their teaching.

[Dreamwoven]

Something that was in vogue in the late 1960s was the programme grant. See https://www.mrc.ac.uk/funding/how-we-fund-research/programme-grant/. This is for the long-term funding of research, at least 5 years, renewable.

[Dreamwoven]

There were two of this involving Aberdeen in the 1960s. A Medical Research Grant that Raymond Illsley obtained, and one that Geoff Sharp got on inner city housing in Coventry.

[Dreamwoven]

The medical sociology part caused a lot of unrest in the department and resulted in a new journal on positivist perspectives. All the symbolic interactionist projects never took off as the interactionists in the Department all left, except Alan Davis who stayed and made 2 or 3 contributions, before leaving for Sydney, Australia. He joined Stuart Rees' department there. The inner city housing project seemed to just disappear! What happened to them? Geoff Sharp left for Coventry but did nothing. I checked his publications and this project drew a blank.

[Danik 2016]

I have a blog on Symbolic Interaction https://wordpress.com/view/socialconstr.wordpress.com, that regularly gets lots of visits. Someone must be using it in their teaching.
I wondered about Symbolic Interaction and tried to access your blog. Unfortunately one has to get through that irritating google harassment, so I couldn´t view it.

[Dreamwoven]

Stuart Rees was briefly in Aberdeen before leaving for Australia, where he made a big impact, See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Rees. He was awarded the Order of Australia for services to international relations. His page on Wikipedia is worth reading! He is now Emeritus Professor there.

[Dreamwoven]

The link works, Danik, just need patience to get through the slow internet connection that they have here. Yes, its very frustrating.

[Dreamwoven]

Try the link away from litnet, on an ordinary connection.

[Danik 2016]

Yes, outside litnet it works fine. It´s a very interesting blog, DW. I didn´t know that Goffman, the only author I know was related to Symbolic Interacionism. I know only his book on total instituitions..

[Dreamwoven]

Irving Goffman wrote several books and articles, though sadly he did not survive long. His work on symbolic interaction was mainly on the interpersonal level, though he also had interests in theory, and developed a framework to explain interaction on the interpersonal level. Geoff Sharp often quoted from his work, especially "On Cooling the mark out", the mark being the victim of a confidence trick, who needed to be "managed" after the con- i.e. cooled out!

[Dreamwoven]

"Visitors to Aberdeen are often surprised to find an ancient university in their midst. But King's College is, in fact, considerably older than many of the colleges founded at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere in Europe, and it has, moreover, the earliest endowed Chair of Medicine in Great Britain. Visitors may also be surprised to realise that for 267 years Aberdeen had not one but to separate Universities, each with its own statutory rights and degree-granting privileges: King's College , founded in Old Aberdeen by Bishop William Elphinstone under a papal Bull dated 10 February 1495; and Marischal College, founded in New Aberdeen by the ardent reformer George Keith, 5th Earl Marishal of Scotland, under a Charter dated 2 April 1593."

The two colleges were united in 1860 under the title of the University of Aberdeen.

King's College, Old Aberdeen: a guide and history (by Leslie J. Macfarlane)

[Dreamwoven]

A point of clarification. King's College has a chapel, the closed imperial crown atop of it is just a chapel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel - it does not compete with St. Machar's Cathedral, almost next door to the chapel. I think the chapel is more beautiful than the Cathedral but that is just my preference, it's closed imperial crown has a grace and proportions that for me give it it's own beauty.

[Dreamwoven]

"The focal point of the college, as well as its oldest building, is the late 15th century King's College Chapel. A number of other historic buildings remain, with others being subject to renovation and rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the early 20th century, a great deal of expansion saw the university buildings increase around the historic college buildings. In the later 20th century, the university expanded dramatically in size, dominating Old Aberdeen and expanding out from the High Street with a number of modern buildings."

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_College,_Aberdeen

[Dreamwoven]

"Old Aberdeen is the hidden gem in the North East. Here, almost uniquely in Scotland, you can visit a medieval Cathedral, a late medieval bridge and a late 15th century college! An independent town from Aberdeen between 1489 and 1891, it retains a wonderful sense of history and an intriguing mixture of architecture, whilst parts of the street plan date from the medieval period. However, the appearance of Old Aberdeen owes much to developments in the 18th and 19th centuries. This walk takes in a number of different buildings and sites and should last about two hours in total. There is a suggested route and there are many interesting diversions from it, some of which have been incorporated into this leaflet."

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/documents/old_aberdeen_trail.pdf

The 5 years I spent here in the late 1960s changed me in a number of ways. I had never been to Aberdeen before but in the time I spent here I came to love Scotland. I was brought up in London, though never liked it. I went several times hiking in the Cairngorms - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairngorms - as well as clambering in the Isle of Skye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye. These were trips I never forgot.

I also visited Edinburgh - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh. I spent a week in Edinburgh in association with a series of seminars I attended.

In my work I became greatly influenced by a colleague, Geoff Sharp, who taught symbolic interaction. (to be continued tomorrow)

[Dreamwoven]

I suppose I was fascinated by symbolic interaction. But the Aberdeen trail was the thing that caught my imagination: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/docume...deen_trail.pdf. I went to the Brig o' Balgownie near where some friends of mine live: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brig_o%27_Balgownie. They explained to me that this bridge was what Lord Byron used to cross over into Aberdeen. These friends live quite near to this 13th Century bridge. They have a house nearby: Tina and Norman Stockman.

[Dreamwoven]

I knew other people in Aberdeen, as well. Maggie Voysey-Paun, and another who liked rambling, with whom I have long since lost touch. We went to the Isle of Skye for rambles in the Cullin Hills with Gerald Popplestone and his wife.

[Dreamwoven]

The Spital was the first place i moved to from Old Aberdeen. It is located closer to the University. In her book, the villages of Aberdeen, The Spital is Chapter 1, "The Leper Folk". It was there I rented a flat in Hillhead Terrace. Eventually I looked to buy a flat in Prospect Terrace, and did so.

[Dreamwoven]

The book I was referring to was by Diane Morgan. The Spital. Prospect Terrace is in Ferryhill, some way from the University, which Dianne Morgan discusses in Lost Aberdeen: Aberdeen's lost architectural heritage.

[Dreamwoven]

I basically left Aberdeen despite having made several friends there. Two of these still keep in touch with me. Why, then, did I leave? Basically because Geoff Sharp left, who taught me Symbolic Interaction. I went to the U.S. to develop my Symbolic Interaction skills. I went to the first course in Symbolic Interaction, hoping to do a Ph.D in the subject: the department had several researchers who were interested. But I soon found out that there would be no further courses in that subject, so I left.

[Dreamwoven]

I've been wandering the world looking for symbolic interactionist courses, just drew a complete blank. So I created my own blog: https://wordpress.com/view/socialconstr.wordpress.com. Its quite popular and is getting 20-30 views a day.

[Dreamwoven]

Far more views than all my other blogs combined.

[Dreamwoven]

Geoff Sharp taught me all I know from Aberdeen. The Highland Clearances, the symbolic interactionist perspective. Pity he didn't stay. Leaving to do a project was too much for him. What a terrible waste of a brilliant teacher!

[Dreamwoven]

My blog has three regular readers.

[Dreamwoven]

My tendency to rush off to the next salaried post has its disadvantages, which are very apparent in retrospect. Especially the 3-year post at Birmingham University that I left Adelaide for. I had a permanent post there so it was dysfunctional to resign from it for a 3-year post. Adelaide was a great city and I should have bided there.

[Dreamwoven]

We would still be there if I had.

[Dreamwoven]

The problem they had in Adelaide was that the Head of Department was subjected to being mobbed by a number of staff. It was sad to watch. Now the Department is no more, and Flinders University in Adelaide took over with its own Department.

[Dreamwoven]

Back to the Aberdeen University post at King's College, where the sociology department was - and still is - based. The symbolic interactionists all left within a few years. The main ones were Alan Davis and Phil Strong, but additionally there was a whole tranche of active symbolic interactionists. The leading ones were Michael Mulkay and Tony Wootton who ended up at York University, where the Department was led by Laurie Taylor. So this was a self-fulfilling prophesy, by leaving and not contributing to the symbolic interactionist perspective, these and others - including myself and Geoff Sharp, showed by their withdrawal, that they were giving their own careers priority. Alan Davis was the most symbolic interactionist of them all. Phil Strong also used the sociology of Erving Goffman just as Geoff Sharp did. So the programme grant that Illsley got by default became positivist.

[Dreamwoven]

"Sociology of Health & Illness Vol. 18 No. 4 1996 ISSN 0141-9889, pp. 551-564
Philip M. Strong (1945-1995): an appreciation
of an essayist
Michael Bloor
School of Social and Administrative Studies, University of Wales Cardiff
Phil Strong died in London, suddenly, on 11 July 1995 aged only 49. One
of the post-war generation of sociologists, he was prominent throughout
the period of the dramatic growth of British medical sociology that began
at the end of the sixties. Well-known for his wide-ranging intellectual
curiosity about illness and identity, health professions and organisational
life, he developed a commitment to multi-disciplinary working at the
same time as retaining a lasting interest in, and dialogue with, the work
of Erving Goffman. My commission to write an appreciative essay of his
work as a medical sociologist is impossible to execute adequately - for
the simple reason that his death robbed us of our most accomplished
essayist."

[Dreamwoven]

Alan Davis and Phil Strong combined to bring my publications to the attention of the Head of Department, Raymond Illsley. They wanted him to give me tenure on the strength of that. But all it did was to make Illsley antagonistic towards me. So when I later resigned to go to Minnesota University he was critical of me. I decided I would go to Minnesota and take my chances there.

[Dreamwoven]

I checked out Minnesota sociology as best I could. The department had several well-known senior symbolic interactionists, including Arnold Rose, Gregory Stone, Harold Finestone, Steve Spitzer, Don Martindale, David Cooperman, and Richard Sykes, so I was sure this was the Department for me. I got visas for our stay in Minneapolis-St. Paul and off we went in 1970.

[Dreamwoven]

Don Martindale wrote and published a book on the outcome of the Department that resulted from the Chairmanship of George Bohrnstedt: The Romance of a Profession: a case history in the sociology of sociology Intercontinental Press (Second Edition) 1986. The book is a mine of information on the power struggles in senior faculty, especially Ch. VII The Power Brokers 1970-1973.

[Dreamwoven]

When a new chairman is appointed by the Faculty he is given free rein to implement his ideas. So Bohrnstedt, elected in 1970 was the first of "the power brokers". The change that I noticed was the introduction of statistical methods and the demotion of symbolic interactionism to being just a first year course in the doctoral programme.

"The new chairman was young, shrewd, sophisticated and unprincipled. He set the tone of hard boiled scientism, making it emphatically clear that preoccupation with undergraduate teaching was provincial. The big action was grants, research, publication and position." (p.135)

[Dreamwoven]

What Don Martindale does not mention was that Bohrnstedt shifted the emphasis from symbolic interactionism to quantitative methods ("hard-boiled scientism"). Symbolic Interactionism on the graduate programme was limited to one optional course, the one I attended taught by Harold Finestone. I only found out about this at the end of the course, which precipitated my decision to abandon the graduate programme and return to Europe.

I had, after all, gone to Minnesota to study symbolic interactionism.

I passed that course with flying colours.

[Dreamwoven]

I was struck, when taking farewell, by the fact that a number of symbolic interactions staff took the trouble to approach me and say how sorry they were to see me leave. See also https://socialconstr.wordpress.com/martindales-book-on-minnesota-sociology-1970-1973/. I had the feeling that this all played an important part in the foundation of a new journal in 1977: Symbolic Interaction.

[Dreamwoven]

Don Martindale wrote and published a book on the outcome of the Department that resulted from the Chairmanship of George Bohrnstedt: The Romance of a Profession: a case history in the sociology of sociology Intercontinental Press (Second Edition) 1986. The book is a mine of information on the power struggles in senior faculty, especially Ch. VII The Power Brokers 1970-1973.

[Dreamwoven]

In the years following I searched in vain for a department that taught symbolic interactionism. I gave up when I accepted a 3-year post at Birmingham University, where there was not a single member of staff with interests in this perspective. By then I had left Adelaide, and now living in the frozen north of Sweden I often regret having left Adelaide. We rented a house that had lemon trees growing in the yard. I will never forget them.

[Dreamwoven]

In the end I started my own blog which I called My Symbolic Interaction. It can be read here: https://wordpress.com/view/socialconstr.wordpress.com. It is strongly influenced by Geoff Sharp's teaching.

Why "My Symbolic Interaction"?

It is based on many of the books on the subject that I bought over the years, books that influenced me profoundly. The work of Erving Goffman figures in it prominently. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman.

Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-American sociologist and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century".[1] In 2007 he was listed by The Times Higher Education Guide as the sixth most-cited author in the humanities and social sciences, behind Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, and ahead of Jürgen Habermas.[2]

Goffman was the 73rd president of the American Sociological Association. His best-known contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction. This took the form of dramaturgical analysis, beginning with his 1956 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman's other major works include Asylums (1961), Stigma (1963), Interaction Ritual (1967), Frame Analysis (1974), and Forms of Talk (1981). His major areas of study included the sociology of everyday life, social interaction, the social construction of self, social organization (framing) of experience, and particular elements of social life such as total institutions and stigmas.

[Danik 2016]

DW,
I think the sad thing about academic subjects is that they are subject to fashion and institutional power struggles.Literature is also a subject that seems to be fading out of the university programs.
"Grants, research, publication and position" sounds very familiar to me. Only the exterior aspects of intellectual productions matter. This can go so far, that, as I discovered these days, papers may get approved without being read.

[Dreamwoven]

I fully agree with your assessment, Danik. And the trend today is very sad. It is all about quantifying the unquantifiable. The statistics mean all, and nothing else counts.

[Danik 2016]

Yes, I know. At the university statistics was a feared discipline. I remembered that I was approved because the professor used a statistical criteria called the "normal curve". Somehow my examination results put me into that curve.

But what really matters IMO, is that when measurements are applied as an only research method to the so called Human Sciences, you get only limited and partial results. It may be successfully combined with other methods, but if it is turned into THE METHOD, science becomes very obvious and very poor.

I don´t know if quantifying results is still as usual as it was in the 20C.

[Dreamwoven]

We returned to Sweden from our one year at Minnesota University, (actually to Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden) in 1972. There Kerstin found us a flat to rent. It cost SEK 106 (Swedish Kronor) a month, with security of tenure. This was so cheap as to be almost laughable. You would have had to pay over SEK 400 a month for a similar flat in Outer London. We never met the landlord, paying in by giro account. each month.


It was this experience that drew my interest, so I found a recent published book in Swedish the explained it to me. The book was called Housing and Capital: a study of Swedish housing policy. One of the authors was Birgit Modh who had an office in Gothenburg University. I went to visit her to talk about the book.

A year later the rent was doubled. It was still cheap, but This was the start of neoliberalism, introduced by President Reagan. Rents went up everywhere.

[Dreamwoven]

This experience made me become a housing researcher. The introduction of Neoliberalism in the U.S.A. had a dramatic impact on rents. Every western country changed its housing policy as a result, following the example of the U.S.A. Renting became much less secure, so there began an increase in home-ownership. It was this that led to the biggest recession since the 1930s in thee

[Dreamwoven]

The introduction of Neoliberalism in the U.S.A. had a dramatic impact on rents. Every western country changed its housing policy as a result, following the example of the U.S.A. Renting became much less secure, so there began an increase in home-ownership. It was this that led to the biggest recession since the 1930s in the 1979 recession: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession.

This was followed by the much deeper "early 2000s recession": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession. Finally came the deeper still Great Recession - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession - from which several banks went into receivership.

[Dreamwoven]

Housing figures prominently in the Great Recession. This is taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession#Effects_on_the_United_States

"In the U.S., persistent high unemployment remained as of December 2012, along with low consumer confidence, the continuing decline in home values and increase in foreclosures and personal bankruptcies, an increasing federal debt, inflation, and rising petroleum and food prices. A 2011 poll found that more than half of all Americans thought that the U.S. was still in recession or even depression, although economic data showed a historically modest recovery.[93] This could have been because both private and public levels of debt were at historic highs in the U.S. and in many other countries.[94][95][96][97]"

Curiously, the famed Zero Interest Rate Policy is absent from this discusssion. For more in that, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_interest-rate_policy.

[Dreamwoven]

This brings us almost up to date. The Great Recession was a time of crisis in U.S. Federal financial policy. The solution for the Feds was zero interest rates (ZIRP - zero interest rates policy), probably to avoid the problem of inflation. Sadly, it doesn't avoid it, it is only "pushing the problem ahead of you". Sooner or later doing this will only create new problems. We have had ZIRP now for getting on for a decade. But what happens when this policy is abandoned? Do we just go back to the old inflation situation? I sense that ZIRP will be hard to cancel for this very reason.

[Dreamwoven]

I thought this post was useful about the tapering of ZIRP: http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/the-unintended-consequences-of-zirp. The unintended consequences of ZIRP grow with each delay of a return to "normal" interest rates (whatever that may mean).

[Dreamwoven]

What are the unintended consequences of ZIRP?

One is the growing enrichment of the banks. ZIRP does not result in zero interest, the banks merely use the accumulated savings in bank accounts by investing them. The customer who is the nominal holder of the savings can't do anything about this, other than seize the opportunity to spend the savings on things like private car-rental scheme: https://turo.com.

[Dreamwoven]

See this from Tyler Durden, a devastating conclusion: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-25/zirp-nirp-accelerating-end-fiat-currencies

[Dreamwoven]

And here is a big argument to listen to, the plight of the working class: http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/the-plight-of-the-working-class

[Danik 2016]

I don´t like ZIRP at all. I hope it doesn´t spread. One might as well keep ones savings at home, if one doesn´t get taxes for them.

[Dreamwoven]

Aye,but that assumes one doesn't get taxed for them. So the Great Recession was paid for by the Federal Government, and it cost billions of dollars. Next time the bill will almost certainly be footed by the taxpayers, or more likely through a poll tax by all - including pensioners and the sick - to spread the cost evenly.