Woman and Children Coast Beach Oregon State Highway Collection OL 422-8-21

A study of the interplay of natural history and human actions over the past three centuries along the Oregon coast reveals certain broad themes. The first is isolation, owing mostly to physiographic realities. As the Pacific Northwest lagged behind the rest of the United States in economic development, so the coastal strip lagged behind the rest of the region. In addition, for most of the settlement period, coastal communities have been isolated from one another, giving each a more distinct local character than more-connected communities inland.

The second theme is a strong federal presence, manifested in everything from land disposal to Indian policy, transportation structures (railroads, highways, port facilities), forest policy, wartime wage and price controls, and modern-day recreational opportunities.

The third theme is ongoing tension in Indian-white relations. From the time European Americans first sailed or set foot in the Northwest, their strategies toward Native peoples have been harsh: conquest, outright extermination, or, at best forcible assimilation. Finally in the last few decades, the coast's Indian people have gained a measure of restored sovereignty.

Fourth, the Pacific Northwest as a whole has served as a hinterland to the rest of the nation and the world. The coastal area has been even more a hinterland to the larger region and to the Pacific Rim. As a result, its economy, culture, and regional character have been strongly shaped by its role as a raw resource provider to the rest of the world.

Finally — and this is undoubtedly a consequence of theme number four — the Oregon coast’s people exemplify a set of complicated cultural attitudes. Coastal residents think of themselves as possessing an independent pioneer spirit (a persistent theme in the cultural mythology of the whole Pacific Northwest region), but this perception contrasts with the reality of the coast’s economic dependence on the outside world. There is a universally declared love of nature, and this is no surprise given that the Oregon coast has some of the most spectacular scenery and awesome natural features in the world. Yet the primary industries that have enabled coastal residents to settle and stay and make their living are lumbering, fishing, mining, and farming. These tend to be hard on the natural environment that is a source of such pride and pleasure.

These industries have produced an economy characterized by two emblematic and dichotomous figures: the blue-collar worker or manual laborer (the role of most men and not a few women throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) and the entrepreneur who puts these men and women to work in the woods, the mill, the cannery, or the dairy farm. The ideal of becoming a timber or mining tycoon, striking it rich through grit, toughness, and luck, seduced many who came to the coastal region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The myth of Oregon as the land of promise, while it may be considered true in some ways, often contrasts with unpromising economic reality for many.

© Gail Wells, 2006.

Themes: People and the Environment,Social Relations

Regions: Oregon Coast

Date: Present

Author: Gail Wells

Summary:
As the Pacific Northwest lagged behind the rest of the United States in economic development, so the coastal strip lagged behind the rest of the region.