Edge effect capitalism: the North American fall line in the longue durée
Date
2022
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Homes, businesses, and infrastructure built atop of the North American fall line have made it visible from space. Why? Fall line edge effects aligned with the technologies and market demands of capitalism to produce the urbanized structure visible today from the space-borne perspective of Earth-observation satellites. The North American fall line is an “ecotone,” an edge, boundary, and contact between environmentally-distinct regions. As an ecotone, the fall line produces “edge effects,” the structural influence of dissimilar environments adjoining and interacting. Along the fall line the different resources concentrated by simultaneous access to the Piedmont and the Tidewater regions, the upland and the lowland environments, were valued and exploited by indigenous Americans, and from the sixteenth century onward, Euro- and African Americans. Fall line edge effects have attracted and sustained human activity and the accumulation of capital atop of and along the geological feature over the longue durée. ☐ This dissertation uses a series of case studies to trace the changing role of fall line edge effects in American society and economy from 1570 to the present, including: indigenous and colonial settlement patterns and social status; colonial iron plantations; technological innovation in merchant milling; and United States industrial finance and state building. These cases, taken from the fall line segment between the falls of the Delaware and the falls of the Roanoke, between present-day Pennsylvania and Virginia, illustrate how successive generations of people have valued and exploited fall line edge effect resource density. In fact, as human economies and technologies changed over the long term, fall line edge effect advantages gained relative value. Reading evidence drawn from business and state records, historical correspondence, travelers accounts, maps, and images through the lens of physical and life sciences reveals the deep interconnectivity of human social relations with the creative, dynamic material world.
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Keywords
Business, Capitalism, Economic history, Environment, Longue durée, Technology