''Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England'' is a book by Diana Muir. The

Providence Journal ''The Providence Journal'', colloquially known as the ''ProJo'', is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island, and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper was first published in 1829. The newspape ...

called ''Bullough’s Pond'' "a masterpiece," and

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

called it "lyrical". The Massachusetts Center for the Book awarded the 2001

Massachusetts Book Award Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

Bullough's Pond Bullough's Pond, a former mill pond located in Newton, Massachusetts, is now a decorative pond in a suburban neighborhood, used for bird watching and walking. In the nineteenth century it was the site of a commercial ice business. Since the early ...

for the author’s "engaging and accomplished storytelling."

Thesis

Muir makes a complex,

Malthusian Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, c ...

argument for the origin of an industrial revolution in New England independent of the English industrial revolution. Demonstrating that the economic model of colonial New England was large families of children on small-hold farms, producing sufficient wealth not only to live comfortably but to enable all of the children to purchase farms, she argues that a crunch point was reached when cheap, unsettled land ceased to be available. Focusing on the decades following 1790, she argues that families had accumulated wealth to set their children up on farms, but that land was not available until after the federal government broke the armed strength of

Tecumseh Tecumseh ( ; October 5, 1813) was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and ...

in the Ohio country. During that twenty-year period, she demonstrates the development of numerous innovative techniques in the early stages of

Interchangeable parts Interchangeable parts are parts ( components) that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely r ...

manufacturing and precision tool manufacturing, the aspects of industrialization in which southern New England was to lead the world. Muir argues that, "The Agricultural Revolution saved hunters and gatherers from starving after they wiped out their bigger prey and populations grew too big to be supported by remaining food supplies. The Industrial Revolution saved the Yankees from poverty, but it depended on fossil energy, the by-products of which are polluting the earth. Muir thus argues that a Third Revolution is now necessary, one that will entail the discovery and deployment of new kinds of energy and materials."

Interchangeable parts

Muir's most innovative argument is her tracing of the origins of

Mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

manufacturing using

Eli Terry Eli Terry Sr. (April 13, 1772 – February 24, 1852) was an inventor and clockmaker in Connecticut. He received a United States patent for a shelf clock mechanism. He introduced mass production to the art of clockmaking, which made clocks a ...

and the early Connecticut clock industry. She outlines a chain of transmission from Terry's mass production of wooden clockworks, through clockmaker

Elisha Cheney Elisha ( ; or "God is my salvation", Greek: , ''Elis îos'' or , ''Elisaié,'' Latin: ''Eliseus'') was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a prophet and a wonder-worker. His name is commonly transliterated into English as Elisha via Hebrew, Eli ...

Simeon North Simeon North (July 13, 1765 – August 25, 1852) was a Middletown, Connecticut, gun manufacturer, who developed one of America's first milling machines (possibly the very first) in 1818 and played an important role in the development of interchan ...

, early mass-production gunmaker and inventor of the earliest milling machine capable of working metal.

Pre-contact New England

Muir’s treatment of Native Americans follows

William Cronon William Cronon (born September 11, 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an environmental historian and the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madi ...

’s understanding of native cultures as agents of change who interacted with the ecosystems they inhabited in complex ways. Her innovation here is the use of archaeological data to argue that the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture enabling them to support populations large enough to include a body of warriors that could hold back the threat of Iroquois conquest.

Economic history

“With New England as the frame of her loom, Diana Muir has used a single shuttle--the dynamic of increasing human population and finite natural resources --to weave the economic and environmental stories of the past four centuries in this corner of North America. Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England suggests that the region has, repeatedly, reached and then exceeded the population that could be sustained by then-current economic subsistence strategies. It illuminates how New Englanders, from indigenous inhabitants to contemporary denizens, have answered the population-resource dilemma and, in doing so, generated both intentional outcomes and unintended – and potent – consequences.”Debra Simes, Page 34 of the Summer 2000 edition of Conservation Matters, the journal of the

Conservation Law Foundation Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) is an environmental advocacy organization based in New England. Since 1966, CLF's mission has been to advocate for New England's environment and its communities. CLF's advocacy work takes place across five integr ...

Individual sections are devoted to farming, and to the machine tool and papermaking industries.

Prizes and awards

For ''Reflections in Bullough's Pond'' (

University Press of New England The University Press of New England (UPNE), located in Lebanon, New Hampshire and founded in 1970, was a university press consortium including Brandeis University, Dartmouth College (its host member), Tufts University, the University of New Hampsh ...

, 2000) *

, 2001

Reading guide

Massachusetts Center for the Book: A Reading and Discussion Guide

References

* https://web.archive.org/web/20080720142823/http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2000/08/20000821_b_main.asp {{reflist 2000 in the environment History of New England Environmental non-fiction books History books about the United States Ecology books Books about economic history Industrial Revolution Books published by university presses