Kodey’s Final Reflection

This class has been a wonderful experience for me as a history student. The online community that this class established was great and the inclusion of the chat feature in the video conferences eventually led me to feel as if I knew the other students better than all the other classmates I have had while going to Truman.

The research that Jonas and I performed was quite enlightening as we were learning about a piece of Missouri history that neither one of us had heard of before. The fact that the McDonald Territory secession is such a little known piece of history really motivated us to tell the story. Our research included newspaper articles, letters, pictures and personal writings found at Truman State, Jefferson City, and mainly the McDonald County Historical Society.

We fulfilled just about every aspect of our project contract and I am pleased with the end result of our website. The format of the website is quite intuitive as we have set up the homepage to guide visitors through the different pages. Each of the tabs at the top of the page divide into sub pages that go further into detail on the events of the secession. From these pages, visitors will see links to the next page at the bottom, as well as a right hand menu of all of the pages and sub pages so that they can check out the other pieces of the website at their own pace. Many of our pages include pictures and documents that give visitors a feeling of what the secessionist movement would have felt like.

The most interesting aspect of this secession is the fact that the motivations for the movement were quite obscure. It’s not every day that a county secedes because a highway is rerouted and they are left off of a map. The main motivation for McDonald County was to gain recognition and repair their tourism industry, and they did just that. So while the secession was not a successful secession in the fact that they did not remain independent, it was successful because they were put back on the map and Jefferson City has not messed with the highways in the county since then.

Again, I’d like to emphasize just how much I enjoyed this class. It has been one of the most enjoyable history classes that I have taken, and it wasn’t even taught by Truman, which I find kind of funny. I found every part of this class intriguing, from the readings at the beginning of the semester, to the research me and Jonas performed, to the online community that was established as a result of the class. Thank you for accepting me into the class and I hope that the website that Jonas and I created helps people to better understand Missouri history and how secession is not always how we imagine it.

Kodey’s Final Update

So I finally was able to get a picture of myself into the about the authors page. I also finished up the Governor John Dalton Speaks and the Secession Loses Steam pages. I’m going through and making sure that each page looks presentable and it looks like our website is essentially complete. There is little left to do.

McDonald Territory Website Update

So Jonas and I have been hard at work on the website the last few days and have gotten most of the first draft completed. Yesterday, I met with Jonas and he gave me a source that he got from the McDonald County Historical Society that gives a great account of the McDonald County secession. It helped me a whole lot with some of the pages that I have created. The other day I was able to put together the page on the McDonald Territory Border Guard and finished editing it today, though I may still add more text content later. Today, I also used the sources we had to put together the Outside Correspondences page and The Battle of Noel page. I plan on adding more to these pages, but more specifically the Outside Correspondence page. In that page I briefly mention that there were talks of McDonald County joining Oklahoma or possibly be given back to the natives, but I have focused on the correspondence between McDonald Territory and Arkansas. I hope to get more info on the talks with the natives and Oklahoma and put a bit of that in there as well. Tomorrow I will work on the Governor John Dalton Speaks page under reconciliation and get that finished up. I think that our project is coming along very well so far.

Website Update

Today I did a bit of work on the About page of the website. I was able to link the “About the Authors” and “Bibliography” pages to the About page so that we could click on the links. I then took some of the paragraphs from our objectives on our contract and edited them to give a brief description of the website and project. I also put in a few sentences about myself in the “About the Authors” section. Me and Jonas plan to also have a picture of each of us on there as well. Later this week me and Jonas will work on the other pages to have the rough draft of our site ready by next week.

I also made a request to the State Archives for State funding and they sent me a pdf of a bunch of records that I am going to go through and incorporate into the tourism/familyland crisis pages.

McDonald Territory Final Contract

COPLAC McDonald Project Contract Final

Kodey Springate and Jonas Chang
Divided Houses Project Contract
February 11, 2017
Project Site: http://divided.coplacdigital.org/truman/

Mission Statement

– The goal of this project is to make the cultural, political, and economic aspects of the Territory of McDonald secessionist movement, a little known part of Missouri history, accessible in a user-friendly site. Because there are few resources, particularly accessible resources, available concerning this movement we would like to consolidate these sources in a publicly oriented and accessible site. In this way, the site would be available for anyone to use, but still provide resources useful for other researchers.
– Our research will cover the rising tourist industry in the Ozarks during the mid-twentieth century and how the U.S. highway system was integral to this. We will also explore the various state policies concerning that affected the tourist flow in McDonald County, ranging from state-funded parks and changes in the federal highway system during the fifties, that created tensions within McDonald County. Following this, we will look into what caused the omission of major towns in McDonald County from being included in the state-sponsored tourist brochure, “Vacationland,” the McDonald reaction to this, and the breakdown of communication between the state and county governments that led to the secessionist movement within McDonald county. The role of local and outside support, including the encouragement from Jasper County, Missouri and the State of Arkansas, in lending legitimacy to the concerns of McDonald Countians will be analyzed as well as the seriousness of the Territory of McDonald Provisional Government to follow through with its various plans of secession. Finally, we will explore the methods of reconciliation that occurred between McDonald County and the State of Missouri and analyze whether or not this extreme form of civil discourse was necessary, effective, and achieved legitimacy in the eyes of the State of Missouri.
– The structure of our site will be this: there will be a homepage that will include a picture of some of the secessionists and tourist destinations in McDonald County, a brief summary of the site, a timeline of events, a map to help visitors quickly understand where McDonald County is located, and the content of the site. At the top of the site will be links to the other pages. The map will be done through StorymapJS and will be placed in one of the three columns on the home page. The timeline will be placed in one of the others. The brief description of the site will be placed at the bottom of the page. The other pages will include The Decade Before, The Family Vacationland Crisis, Secession, and Reconciliation. Each page will include text information and photographs. The Decade Before will explore the rising tourist industry in the region and how it became a central part of the county’s economy. It will also discuss the difficulties the county had with federal and state policies that limited funding and removed Noel, the center of the tourist industry within the county, from a federal highway and instead placed it on a state highway. The Family Vacationland Crisis page will explore the immediate cause of the secessionist movement, which was the exclusion of important McDonald County towns from the state tourist brochure. The reasons for this and the reaction of McDonald Countians will be included. The Secession page will guide the site visitor through the formation of the Provisional Government, the implementation of travel visas, the correspondences between the Territory of McDonald and its neighbors, and the Battle of Noel. The final page, Reconciliation, will discuss the dissolvement of the Territory of McDonald and the county’s return to Missouri. It will also explore the swelling of the tourist industry in the county throughout the following decade, hopefully leading the visitor to wonder if the true intentions of the secessionist movement was truly secession.
– General elements will include newspaper articles and photographs from the time period under study. We may also include videos or transcripts from news shows as well, depending on whether or not recordings or transcripts from the time period have been preserved.

Tools We Plan to Use

– We plan to use a the Parabola WordPress theme, which will display page titles at the top of the page and offer an appealing home page.
– We will include a timeline on the main page and will do so using TimelineJS. The same will be done using an interactive map through StorymapJS.
– We do not yet know if a graphic or video editing tool will need to be used because needing to do so is conditional on whether or not we need to edit images for use on the website.

Schedule of Milestones
February 17- Kodey will have scheduled a meeting with Janet Romine by this point.

March 3- Jonas will have done substantial research regarding the role of tourism and the interstate system in the region at this point and will begin constructing the The Decade Before page.

March 10- Jonas will have scheduled visits to the McDonald County Historical Society, the MSU Special Collections, and the Springfield Branch of the Missouri State Historical Society to do archival research over the following week. He will also have done substantial work on the homepage of the website.
Kodey will have called and scheduled a visit to the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City.

March 13-17- Jonas will do the research listed above and begin further fleshing out the pages of the website.
Kodey will go to Jefferson City to check out the Missouri State Archives

March 24- Jonas and Kodey will have pursued further research as it is required, including making online requests for particular documents from the State Archives and Historical Society. We will continue working to finish the website.

March 31- Have first draft of website ready to go

April 7-23- Continually collaborate to work on website.

April 24- Final draft of website will be finished.

Missouri State Archives Visit

So this Thursday, I went to the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City. I was there for about 4 hours going through documents and correspondence that involved John M. Dalton, the governor of Missouri during the McDonald Territory situation. Most of the correspondence I found was just people telling him to support this proposed mental health bill. But I did find 3 documents that specifically mentioned McDonald County. One of those documents was a Senate resolution that agreed to form a committee with members from Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to investigate the situation in McDonald county and determine whether or not they should support the formation of a 51st state from McDonald County, Missouri; Benton County, Arkansas; and Delaware County, Oklahoma. I found this pretty interesting.

I then tried to see if I could get information on state funding my county but they told me it was too late to pull boxes. But then one of the workers there showed me a way to request documents from the archives online. So that is what I am planning on doing.

Jonas and Kodey’s Contract

ProjectContract

Kodey Springate and Jonas Chang
Divided Houses Project Contract
February 11, 2017
Project Site: http://divided.coplacdigital.org/truman/

Mission Statement

– The goal of this project is to make the cultural, political, and economic aspects of Territory of McDonald secessionist movement, a little known part of Missouri history, accessible in a user-friendly site. Because there are few resources, particularly accessible resources, available concerning this movement we would like to consolidate these sources in a publicly oriented and accessible site. In this way, the site would be available for anyone to use, but still provide resources useful for other researchers.
– Our research will cover the rising tourist industry in the Ozarks during the mid-twentieth century and how the U.S. highway system was integral to this. We will also explore the various state policies concerning that affected the tourist flow in McDonald County, ranging from state-funded parks and changes in the federal highway system during the fifties, that created tensions within McDonald County. Following this, we will look into what caused the omission of major towns in McDonald County from being included in the state-sponsored tourist brochure, “Vacationland,” the McDonald reaction to this, and the breakdown of communication between the state and county governments that led to the secessionist movement within McDonald county. The role of local and outside support, including the encouragement from Jasper County, Missouri and the State of Arkansas, in lending legitimacy to the concerns of McDonald Countians will be analyzed as well as the seriousness of the Territory of McDonald Provisional Government to follow through with its various plans of secession. Finally, we will explore the methods of reconciliation that occurred between McDonald County and the State of Missouri and analyze whether or not this extreme form of civil discourse was necessary, effective, and achieved legitimacy in the eyes of the State of Missouri.
– The structure of our site will be this: there will be a homepage that will include a picture of some of the secessionists, a brief summary of the site, a timeline of events, a map to help visitors quickly understand where McDonald County is located, and the content of the site. The picture will run along the top of the site, edged on the bottom of the picture will be links to the other pages. The map may be done through StorymapJS and will be placed underneath the brief summary of the site. The timeline will either be placed beneath this or to its side. The other pages will include The Decade Before, The Family Vacationland Crisis, Secession, and Reconciliation. Each page will include text information and photographs. The Decade Before will explore the rising tourist industry in the region and how it became a central part of the county’s economy. It will also discuss the difficulties the county had with federal and state policies that limited funding and removed Noel, the center of the tourist industry within the county, from a federal highway and instead placed it on a state highway. The Family Vacationland Crisis page will explore the immediate cause of the secessionist movement, which was the exclusion of important McDonald County towns from the state tourist brochure. The reasons for this and the reaction of McDonald Countians will be included. The Secession page will guide the site visitor through the formation of the Provisional Government, the implementation of travel visas, the correspondences between the Territory of McDonald and its neighbors, and the Battle of Noel. The final page, Reconciliations, will discuss the dissolvement of the Territory of McDonald and the county’s return to Missouri. It will also explore the swelling of the tourist industry in the county throughout the following decade, hopefully leading the visitor to wonder what the true intentions of the secessionist movement was truly secession. Each page may also include videos of oral history, though a separate page may contain the oral histories of the movement. This is of course dependent on whether or not the researchers will be able to record oral histories and receive permission to make them public.
– General elements will include newspaper articles and photographs from the time period under study. We may also include videos or transcripts from news shows as well, depending on whether or not recordings or transcripts from the time period have been preserved. Tentatively, we hope to include oral histories acquired by us from people who lived through the secessionist movement, which will either have their own page or be dispersed throughout the website where relevant.

Tools We Plan to Use

– We plan to use a WordPress theme that will display pages and subpages at the top of the page.
– We will include a timeline on the main page and will do so using TimelineJS. The same will be done using an interactive map through StorymapJS.
– We do not yet know if a graphic or video editing tool will need to be used due to needing to do so is conditional on whether or not we are able to use oral histories or need to edit images for use on the website.

Schedule of Milestones
February 17- Kodey will have scheduled a meeting with Janet Romine by this point.

March 3- Jonas will have done substantial research regarding the role of tourism and the interstate system in the region at this point and will begin constructing the The Decade Before page.

March 10- Jonas will have scheduled visits to the McDonald County Historical Society, the MSU Special Collections, and the Springfield Branch of the Missouri State Historical Society to do archival research over the following week. He will also have done substantial work on the homepage of the website.
Kodey will have called and scheduled a visit to the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City.

March 13-17- Jonas will do the research listed above and begin further fleshing out the pages of the website.
Kodey will go to Jefferson City to check out the Missouri State Archives

March 24- Jonas and Kodey will have pursued further research as it is required and continue working to finish the website.

March 31- Have first draft of website ready to go

April 7-23- Continually collaborate to work on website.

April 24- Final draft of website will be finished.

McDonald Territory Story Map

For this week’s assignment, I worked on the story map while Jonas worked on the time line. Here is a link to the story map on our site:

McDonald Story Map

Story Map JS was not to difficult to use. I watched an 8 minute tutorial and was using it just fine afterwards. The pictures I used were from a book I found in Truman’s Special Collections and from newspaper microfilms from the 1960s. I tried to go in as linear of a story progression as I could. I mentioned the rerouting of highway 71, which angered many of Noel’s residents before the vacation land map was even released. I then had the story progress from Jefferson City releasing the map without Noel, to Noel as they seceded and formed their own militia, to the potential deals with Arkansas and the Cherokee tribe, to Jefferson City as the State Congress rejected the secessionist movement.

Yes California

The Yes California movement holds two core beliefs: 1. California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and 2. California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as just a U.S. state. The introduction also states that California has the sixth largest economy in the world and a larger population than Poland. These are just a few of the reasons for which the Yes California movement is pushing for a citizen’s initiative for the 2018 ballot, which if passed, means that California citizens will have the ability to vote to secede from the Union by the Spring of 2019. Yes California cites the United Kingdom’s secession from the European Union as a similar situation and believes they have just as much of a right to secede from the United States as the U.K. had to leave the EU. Personally, I think that the United Kingdom situation is quite different. The United Kingdom has been its own entity for over 300 years, California was an unrecognized state for about 25 days in 1846 and has been a part of the United states ever since.
The Yes California movement has 9 key points as to why they believe it would be best to secede: 1. Peace and Security, 2. Elections and Government, 3. Trade and Regulation, 4. Debt and Taxes, 5. Immigration, 6. Natural Resources, 7. The Environment, 8. Health and Medicine, and 9. Education. After reading through their description of the 9 points, I can see why many Californians have such a strong desire to leave the United States. Where as before looking into their reasons, I thought it ridiculous for them to want to secede. The biggest points that stood out to me were the trade and regulation, debt and taxes, natural resources, and education. As Yes California puts it, The United States government currently holds a “burdensome trade system” that hurts their economy because trade is made difficult and expensive for Californian businesses. As for the debt and taxes, California has been subsidizing the other states at a cost of 10s to 100s of billions of dollars every fiscal year, forcing them to raise taxes in order to support the other states.
Natural resources are quite important to self sustainability, and currently the U.S. government and its agencies hold 46% of California and are using the natural resources to pay of its debt. Yes California wants to take that 46% and use the resources to help their own independent country. California does have some of the best Universities, yet as Yes California claims, their public school system is in shambles. As an independent country, they would be able to have more control over their school system, and hopefully improve it exponentially.
Despite these valid points, I highly doubt that California will be allowed to secede from the Union. I can’t see the United States government stand by while they lose one of the biggest economies in the nation. They may believe they are doing everything legally, which they very well may be doing. Yet if the U.S. government does not want California to secede, it would not be very difficult to step in and stop them. Of course, this is assuming that the vote to secede even passes.

Kodey Springate and Jonas Chang’s Contract 1st Draft

Kodey Springate and Jonas Chang

Divided Houses Project Contract

February 11, 2017

Project Site: http://divided.coplacdigital.org/truman/

 

Mission Statement

 

  • The goal of this project is to make the cultural, political, and economic aspects of Territory of McDonald secessionist movement, a little known part of Missouri history, accessible in a user-friendly site. Because there are very few resources available concerning this movement, particularly scholarly sources, we would like to make this site publicly oriented accessible. In this way, the site would be available for anyone to use, but still provide resources useful for other researchers.
  • The structure of our site will be this: there will be a homepage that will include a picture of some of the secessionists, a brief summary of the site, and the content of the site. A timeline may be included on this page. The picture will run along the top of the site, edged on the bottom of the picture will be links to the other pages. The other pages will include The Decade Before, which will discuss economic, political, and cultural tensions within the county before the secession; The Family Vacationland Crisis, Secession, and Reconciliation. Each page will include text information and photographs. Each page may also include videos of oral history, though a separate page may contain the oral histories of the movement.
  • General elements will include newspaper articles from the time period under study. We may also include videos or transcripts from news shows as well. Tentatively, we hope to include oral histories acquired by us from people who lived through the secessionist movement, which will either have their own page or be dispersed throughout the website where relevant.

 

Tools We Plan to Use

 

  • As of now, we do not know which WordPress theme we will be using and, as such, we do not know what plugins or layouts we will be using.
  • If we include a timeline on the main page we will be using a timeline tool, perhaps JSTimeline.
  • We do not know which tools we will be using, but we will need tools to work with images,videos, and potentially audio files, possibly Camtasia Studio.

 

Schedule of Milestones

February 17- Kodey will have scheduled a meeting with Janet Romine by this point.

March 13-17- Jonas will go to the McDonald County Historical Society to visit the archives and record oral histories

-Kodey will go to Jefferson City to check out the Missouri State Archives

 

March 31- Have first draft of website ready to go

 

Who Will Do What

 

Kodey-

  • Schedule a meeting with Janet Romine to look through the Truman archives to see if there are any documents easily accessible.
  • Get into contact with and visit the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City

 

Jonas-

  • Visit the archives at the McDonald County Historical Society
  • Attempt to schedule, lead, and record oral histories from McDonald County citizens who lived through the secessionist movement