U.s. Regions: Contrasts Of Land And People (1986)

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] Earth is a water Planet most of our planet surface is covered by oceans only 29% of Earth's crust rises above the sea to form islands and continents more than 10 million square kilm or about 6% of Earth's total land area Falls within the boundaries of the United States the United States is Earth's fourth largest country the country is divided into 50 states Alaska Hawaii and a block of 48 states that forms a broad belt across the North American continent the nation can be divided into [Music] regions there are two reasons for dividing the nation into regions first the United States contains many different physical environments mountains deserts flat and hilly lands rivers lakes and oceans create climate and weather conditions that all vary from region to region and second the human history of the United States is the story of people Conquering the land colonizing the east and south skipping across the continent and later taming the dry western part of the country the regions differ because they were settled at different times and their Human Geography took form in different ways by understanding how each region got to be the way it is we can better understand the United States we will identify six major regions within the block of 48 states New England the Middle Atlantic the South the Midwest the interior West the Pacific West in addition we recognize Alaska and Hawaii as separate regions let's begin by examining New England for ages the land was only sparsely populated when in 1620 pilgrims fleeing persecution were the first Europeans to reach the New England coast settlers from many European nations later followed the pilgrims to New England even though the soil of the region was poor many of the rural new englanders finally gave up their farms and moved farther west hoping to find rich land most of the abandoned New England Farms returned to Forest but many new englanders living by the Sea stayed in the region the coastal wat is yielded fish and fishing soon became a way of life for the new englanders many of them became skillful boat Builders and seamen as well a few new englanders made Fortunes in whaling early in the 19th century the industry boomed Whalers from New England sailed to Harbors around the globe fast clipper ships brought goods money and ideas from all over the world to Boston and other New England ports early Protestant settlers from England brought with them a passionate Devotion to learning their pioneering ideas in education made New England one of the main centers of Education in America textile factories in Southern New England laid the foundation for an industrial revolution in the early part of the 1800s the factories were powered by waterfalls on the many rivers flowing through the area Goods produced by these early Industries became known for their quality and reliability Irish and Italian settlers were among the thousands who found work in these new Industries but New England changed many of the industries that as century ago were Advanced grew obsolete the machines in these Mills are no longer driven by the power of the river a new Industrial Revolution is sweeping parts of the country new Industries are replacing old ones Boston has always been the regional capital and the corporate financial and educational headquarters despite the growth of major metropolitan areas in Southern New England much of rural New England remains sparsely populated attracting vacationers who enjoy the outdoors today many people are refurbishing New England's old farming and fishing [Music] villages The South was first settled by Europeans at about the same time New England was with plenty of rainall fall and over 200 frost free days a year early settlers discovered they could produce crops that would grow nowhere else in British North America most of the labor on the plantation was done by slaves from Africa and from islands in the Caribbean the most profitable crop in the South was cutton cutton boomed in the 1800s but only a few people really benefited from the boom chiefly the owners of large plantations in the early South social and economic life centered around the plantations more than in towns and cities as a result industry was discouraged and cities were slow to grow the slaves and many poor whites without land remained uneducated and often badly nourished As Time wore on the issue of slavery produced a sharp division in the country which finally broke out in Civil War North against South the War lasted 4 years and before it was over more than a million people had been killed or maimed although slavery was ended by the war most southern blacks remained landless and poor by the 1900s intensive cotton farming had ruined much of the South's best soil many farms and plantations were abandoned and now have reverted to forests most of America's cut and growing moved West to irrigated lands in Texas Arizona and California for many years much of the South languished in poverty few people people moved into the region and many left especially the children and grandchildren of poor Farmers today however the south is changing rapidly faster than almost any other region of the United States industry is moving south attracted by lower labor and energy costs and by special land and tax breaks offered by cities and states some established Industries continued to flourish the oil industry is one of them the extraction of oil and gas extends from from large fields in Oklahoma and West Texas into offshore fields in Louisiana and Texas Southern Florida's subtropical climate permits crops to grow year round the cultivation of citrus fruits forms the major part of Florida's huge agricultural economy another crop important to the state's economy is winter produce mainly vegetables for the urban Northeast for a long time time Florida has been one of the fastest growing states in the union elderly people move here to live out their retirement years in the warmth and sunshine vacationers flock to Florida every winter to escape the snow and cold of the north people are attracted by job opportunities in the south for the first time Southern cities are experiencing rapid growth the cities look more and more like other cities in the nation Atlanta serves as the regional capital of the new South the southernmost big city in the region Miami is the closest port of entry for people from Eastern Central America Northern South America the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas a very large population has entered Miami from Cuba Miami serves as the financial center not only of Southern Florida but of much of the Caribbean Basin as well set between New England and the south is the Mid-Atlantic region socially and economically it is one of the most complex regions in the nation the Mid-Atlantic region was one of the earliest regions to urbanize on a massive scale large scale immigration from Europe to New York City began in the early 1800s and continued for a century the movement peaked in the early 1900s but was brought to an end by laws in the 1920s which sharply reduced the number of immigrants farmers in the South mostly blacks fleeing worn out farmlands started a second movement during World War I the movement of blacks rapidly increased especially to New York Chicago Philadelphia Detroit and other smaller industrial cities this movement of blacks continued during World War II and still continued after the war industry in the Mid-Atlantic region was fueled by vast deposits of coal in Pennsylvania West Virginia and Kentucky steel emerged as the basis for an expanding industrial Empire centered in Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio except for the cities and a few agricultural Pockets much of the region was sparsely settled in the Adera and in parts of the Appalachians for example towns are far apart many steel mills and factories were allowed to become Obsolete and were closed much of the heaviest industry began to move out of the region and people followed never theless the Middle Atlantic region Still Remains one of America's most important industrial regions and most of the population still lives in big and middle-sized industrial cities shipping remains one of the main economic activities of this region New York Philadelphia and Baltimore are leading American ports the influx of people to the region has greatly slowed and urban populations leveled off in the last several decades but the population remains concentrated in large metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia Pittsburgh and New York and a host of other mediumsized cities New York the largest city in the country is the economic social and cultural nerve center of the Mid-Atlantic region the nation and much of the rest of the world the Midwest is the home of a large industrial and agricultural economy the soil of this Heartland is composed of mineral Rich silt and fertile humus rainfall is ample the good soil yielded large harvests for early settlers major changes have taken part in the lives of many farmers within the span of a generation mechanization of farming has increased drastically new machines have increased profits and acreage Farms continue to decrease in numbers and increase in size owners of many small farms unable to expand have been forced out of business increasingly successful Farmers have become entrepreneurs of large scale aggra businesses Midwestern Farms Produce a large part of the nation's foreign exchange and are a primary source of the Region's wealth but large- scale farming creates problems too Farm families are leaving the land as Farms get bigger fewer and more expensive to run large scale input of chemical fertilizers and pesticides common on big farms may lead to water pollution when a crop is damaged by pests big farms tend to become economically vulnerable because they often specialize in few crops large- scale farming can create serious long range problems which are hard to cure but large- scale farming can be very profitable too this 35 barge tow holds several train loads of grain the barges are made of steel manufactured in the region vast quantities of Steel used in manufacturing and construction come from steel Works located on the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie the iron ore for the steel Works was traditionally shipped from mines in northern Minnesota the furnaces of the steelworks were fueled by coal from large deposits in Central and Southern Illinois and the Appalachians the region came to be dotted with large manufacturing centers the largest of these centers is Chicago the city emerged as a world center for manufacturing trading and Transportation Chicago is the largest Inland city in the United States technology continues to create new Industries and new products While others like Iron and Steel making have been declining some heavy Industries attracted by lower wages and energy demands have moved to the South and the West once a major Center for railroads and flower Mill Minneapolis St Paul is now an internationally recognized Center for computer and high technology manufacturing and education the first settlers of the Pacific West passed through the region people called the interior West to settle in Oregon they were prompted by words of early explorers Oregon was a Garden of Eden much of Oregan was covered by deserts and mountainous forests interspersed with a few fertile valleys the first settlers came to farm the wamit valley lumbering became an important industry in the early part of the 20th century after forests in the East and Upper Midwest had been depleted today some wage earners in Western Oregon and Washington work in the wood processing Industries outdoor recreation throughout the whole Pacific coastal region has become important to the economy as more and more persons enjoy its natural beauty in the early 1840s while Oregon fever raged in the north only a few thousand persons lived in the territory of California then in 1848 gold was discovered in the Sierra Foothills resulting in the great Gold Rush of 1849 before long tens of thousands of Prospectors were panning for gold in the fields and in 1850 only two years later because of the population boom caused by the gold rush California achieved statehood San Francisco had become the jumping off point for wouldbe gold diggers from every corner of the world meantime San Francisco had also become the gateway to California's Central Valley one of the most fertile areas in the Pacific West in the other direction the harbors of San Francisco gave easy access to the Pacific this easy access between the interior and the ocean made San Francisco Bay the most important American port on the Pacific coast as time went on however other Harbors were developed along the coast of the region these ports joined San Francisco in trading in the Pacific Basin the Cosmopolitan nature of San Francisco is rooted in the city's history and geography today the San Francisco Bay area is densely populated its Port facilities are well Diversified the area also supports a variety of light and heavy Industries investment capital from the city and and other parts of the country supports hundreds of pioneering high technology companies in the so-called Silicon Valley just south of the city Los Angeles the nation's second largest Metropolis is located several hundred kilometers to the south in Southern California even by American Standards Los Angeles is a new city until the 1880s Los Angeles remained a small town but then publicity by the promoters of the newly established railroad to Los Angeles created a real estate boom easterners began arriving by a railroad to settle in Los Angeles and a host of nearby small towns oil discovered in the area became an important factor in the growth of Los Angeles and nearby towns the towns grew rapidly and became connected by street cars by the early 1900s the automobile arrived in Los Angeles and a network of Roads was built to connect these small town towns before long the towns had begun to grow together and by the time of World War II the great sprawling City covered most of the Los Angeles plane Los Angeles of course was made famous by the movie industry but the city became a major Center of industry and commerce as well the Aerospace industry was born here the Port of Los Angeles now ships more cargo than any other port on the Pacific coast the Los Angeles we have learned to know is the first big city in the world whose form was largely created by the automobile the horizontal distribution of the population resulted from extensive commuting by car pollution from the exhaust of thousands of cars has become a problem the city is facing today the city is always changing new neighborhoods are still emerging today Los Angeles is the biggest ethnic mixture of new immigrants in the mainland United States the new immigrants are mostly from Latin America and from the Pacific Basin early farmers in Southern California soon discovered that the soil quickly dries to dust during dry spells in the near desert climate some of the most ambitious irrigation systems in the history of the world were constructed to bring water from the Eastern edge of the Sierra Nevadas and the Colorado River hundreds of miles away the the irrigation water turned California into the most productive agricultural state in the country agriculture became a huge highly mechanized business but hand labor remained important too today in addition to Native Americans workers from other countries primarily Mexico work in the fields but the Waters of the Sierra Nevadas and the Colorado River are also claimed by the great cities of Southern California and by other nearby desert States this limits the water available for agriculture shortage of water is a serious challenge facing the Southwest today 19th century Americans thought the interior West was the Great American desert and treated it as no more than an obstacle to Travelers heading for the Pacific coast a region to be crossed as quickly as possible Indian Horsemen had long ruled the mountains and grassy Plains of the Interior West then in 1869 the gap between East and West was closed by the Union Pacific Railroad and soon several more transcontinental railroads had been built the Last Frontier was rapidly coming to an end the railroads were financed by land the government gave the railroad companies most of the early West was developed on land the railroad companies sold to settlers more land was available through the government Homestead Act many settlers did not realize that the climate fluctuates greatly from year to year many farmers journeyed West only to be defeated by drought and forced to abandon their land other Farmers tapped limited supplies of underground water some Farmers broke up the hard surface soil and learned how to make the land hold and absorb the limited rainfall they became known as dry Farmers Westward however farming is replaced by grazing the Cattlemen of the planes once marketed their live cattle as far as Chicago Kansas City Omaha and Fort Worth many of the Stockyards are no longer in use feed lots that can hold tens of thousands of head of cattle now exist on the outskirts of Phoenix and Denver and in other locations in the region increasingly the interior West is becoming one of America's major sources of energy in the form of coal exported by train to other regions or in the form of electricity generated within the region and exported by huge power lines Denver is a center for transportation Finance Commerce and Industry in the region it evolved as a Supply Center for the mining industry and now is the Gateway for the recreational areas of the Rocky Mountains throughout their history the people of the United States have consistently been moving Westward expanding the territory as they moved in the late 1950s that expansion reached its culmination as the United States added its last two states Alaska and Hawaii each state lies far beyond the old limits of the country each state has a distinct Geographic personality different from anything the country had known before Alaska is the largest state in the Union One sixth of the United States total land area Falls within the boundaries of Alaska Russia used to own Alaska it was the easternmost Outpost of the Russian Siberian Empire then in 1867 the territory was sold to the United States many people ridiculed the purchase the land is worthless it's an ice box it is true most of Alaska is very forbidding the long bitter Winters and the cool short Summers the growth of vegetation in the Arctic zone of the state in the region of the tundra even trees cannot grow farming here is impossible in fact temperatures on the tundra of the North Slope by the Arctic Ocean are so low that the ground is permanently frozen into permafrost but the resources of the state are as huge as the state itself the waters team with Fish And shellfish and Alaska has some of the richest Forest res resources and most valuable mineral deposits in the country as in California the first major burst of American settlements in Alaska was caused by a gold rush to the southern Panhandle and to the adjacent Canadian Yukon other settlements were established the population of Alaska grew slowly with an Economy based mainly on Furnishing the lower 48 states with fish minerals and lumber during and after World War II however military bases were established in Alaska as a major part of the country's Northern defenses more recently large oil fields were discovered under the permafrost Tundra of the North Slope and under the floor of the Arctic Ocean a pipeline was built over extremely difficult terrain to connect the North Slope with the tanker Port of vald on the Pacific Ocean this pipeline was completed in 1977 and Carries over a mill ion barrels of oil a day and links America to a major source of oil although the state's economy keeps expanding and people come here in growing numbers Alaska's population Still Remains the smallest in the union Hawaii the 50th and last state to join the union is a chain of volcanic islands near the center of the Pacific Ocean powerful forces are shaping the land lava bursting through the crust builds new mountains and new islands in the sea some of the mountains rise 12,000 ft above the ocean and descend 20,000 ft into the sea the key to the Region's human geography is its tropical climate and its location near the middle of the ocean the islands are the only significant land to be found within tens of thousands of square miles of the world's largest ocean Hawaii's location near the middle of the ocean made it an important landing at first for ships and then for airplanes the islands location also makes them a crucial military base in any Pacific strategy economical fairs and fast Plains make it possible for millions of visitors from the US Mainland and Asia to come to the islands every year visitors have been settling in Hawaii for many centuries and their Origins Trace back to all parts of the Pacific Basin the people of Hawaii are among the most varied and mixed on Earth Hawaii was first settled by the Polynesian seaf fars over a thousand years ago Sailors and Whalers from the Eastern United States anchored their ships here in the 18th and 19th centuries Christian missionaries from New England soon followed the Whalers and the traitors the missionaries brought Christianity and a permanent American presence to the islands throughout most of the 19th century the islands remained an independent Polynesian Kingdom following the California Gold Rush the United States became interested in the Pacific Basin and trade with the Orient increased greatly Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific was drawn into the United States sphere of interest and it was annexed to the United States in 1898 it was soon discovered that Hawaii's volcanic soil and tropical climate were ideally suited for the growing of sugar cane and pineapple and other valuable tropical crops thousands of people from China and then from Japan and the Philippines were brought to the islands as Farm Workers as more and more land was cultivated native Hawaiians and Americans were soon outnumbered by the new Farm Workers today many descendants of the workers are prominent citizens and leaders of business and civic affairs many of them live in Honolulu the center for Commerce and transportation not far from Honolulu is Pearl Harbor one of the finest Harbors in the Pacific Basin Pearl Harbor in haian Islands became the staging base for the American war effort in the Pacific Basin during World War II today the Armed Forces remain an important factor in the state's economy tourism is the largest industry on the islands tourists from all around the Pacific Basin love the mix of people the bombing climate the spacious beaches and the interaction of land and sea as we look back at the human regions we realize that the people of the United States geographically have been very lucky indeed they have always had a wide range of choices the patterns of their Human Geography have not been accidental sometimes they've chosen to abuse and waste their Geographic resources and when that has happened the results have been a disaster often however they have learned the limits of their Geographic environment and learned to treat it wisely and well what usually made the difference was knowledge knowledge of geographic opportunities but knowledge of geographic limits too the people of the United States have learned that geography is always changing now as always they have a choice of what they want their future geography to become