“In the spring of 1816, the weather in New England turned suddenly chilly. A distant volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 had expelled sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere in such quantity that they reduced the amount of solar energy that could reach Earth’s surface…”
So begins today’s story from Emma C. Moesswilde.
For further listening:
Climate History
For further reading:
J. Luterbacher and C. Pfister, “The Year Without a Summer,” Nature Geoscience 8 (2015): 246–48.
90 Second Narratives
Season 10: “Seeking Justice”
Episode 5: “Creative Community Responses to Climate Change in New England”
Sky Michael Johnston:
Welcome to 90 Second Narratives. I am Sky Michael Johnston and today our storyteller is Emma C. Moesswilde, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Georgetown University. Her dissertation investigates relationships between climate change and agricultural practice. She also co-hosts the podcast Climate History. Listen now as she tells her story, “Creative Community Responses to Climate Change in New England.”
Emma Moesswilde:
In the spring of 1816, the weather in New England turned suddenly chilly. A distant volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 had expelled sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere in such quantity that they reduced the amount of solar energy that could reach Earth’s surface, resulting in cooler temperatures not just in Indonesia, but across the globe as these particles circulated in the atmosphere. So the following year in Maine, rather than a slowly greening landscape, snow and then ice thickened on the ground. Corn crops were stunted in the icy weather and dry climate, and as the summer wore on many farmers harvested early to save what they could. The lack of corn meant a lack of food as well as a loss of profit for many farming families. Scarcity – and in some cases near-starvation – was widespread. Some wealthier Mainers or those with a more successful harvest worked to supply their neighbors with additional corn, but for many there was no alternative but to leave their frozen fields and head west. The “Ohio Fever” – or a desire to head west to the supposed mild, fertile plains of the Ohio Valley – set in along with the cold, and thousands of families left Maine altogether in the wake of what came to be called “the year Eighteen Hundred and Starved to Death.” Yet many others persisted through a scanty harvest and another chilly winter to be rewarded by warmth in July of 1817 and a bumper harvest in the fall – enough to persuade enough folks to stay and continue farming the land, even changing how they farmed to include more cold-resistant crops, like rutabagas, in case of another chilly year.
Consequences of the so-called “Year Without A Summer” were widespread and unequal; yet responses were also varied, creative, and flexible. This story highlights the multifold strategies that helped people to persist in the face of climatic disruption. Such small-scale actions ensured community survival, resilience, and integrity.
Sky Michael Johnston:
You can learn much more about environmental history from Emma Moesswilde by listening to her own podcast that she co-hosts with Dr. Dagomar Degroot. It is called Climate History, and you can find a link to all the Climate History episodes in today’s episode description.
And for further reading for today’s story, have a look at the 2015 article, “The Year Without a Summer,” by Jürg Luterbacher and Christian Pfister. You’ll find that in Nature Geoscience.
Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to 90 Second Narratives and join me again next time for another “little story with BIG historical significance.
