A while ago, I was gifted a book about my birth year. "What a Year it Was," outlined what was going on in the world in the year I was born. It was interesting to learn of the politics and world events of the time. It reminded me that I should know something about the world in which my grandfather, John Crnkovich, was born. Would any of the world’s events in his birth year affect his life? What was happening in the years around his birth?
He was born in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, in southeastern Europe, in 1868. I remember studying the Industrial Revolution in school – how the steamship and other inventions were important. I may have learned about the social and political changes resulting from these inventions, but I don’t recall. Certainly, I never connected how these events affected my ancestors’ lives in Europe.
I read the Industrial Revolution had the greatest influence on human history since the cultivation of crops and domestication of animals. Wow…how did a steam engine do that? And now, we might be living in a time which is equally having an impact on the world. Computers have been changing average lives in every way for more than twenty years. The Internet has connected the world’s peoples in the last ten years. Will the steam engine of our time be the computer on every desk, or the smart phone? Or, will Facebook and Twitter be remembered as the new social inventions that changed the world? Are we in an Information Revolution? Or will it be called a Communication Revolution? It’s probably too early for us to know how others will look back on our time.
Anyways, I want to understand and appreciate the world my grandfather came into. So, back to the steam engine...and, a little review of history will help. Initially, the steam engine pumped out water from mines. It was invented in England, and it put them in the lead of something new…industrialization. It replaced water wheels and horses as a power source. Steam-engine power produced all-metal machines, which in turn mechanized many other industries. Such improvements in the manufacturing process meant things could be made faster or done quicker. Steam-powered industries, such as cotton mills and ironworks, could now be located anywhere, not just near a water source where water wheels supplied power.
Steam-powered railroads and steamships moved goods faster and farther, and gave more people the opportunity to travel. European nations established overseas empires to provide raw materials for their factories back home. England was in India. England, France, and Germany were in Africa. Spain was in Central and South America.
It all started in the late 1700s, in Britain. Industrialization came next to greater Europe and North America, in the 1800s, over a 100-year period. About the same time there were innovations in agriculture, reducing the amount of manual labor needed. So, rural populations moved to town seeking opportunities in the new factories. Things were changing from an agricultural and rural economy to a capitalist and urban economy…from a rural household and family-based economy, to a large city, industry-based economy. It changed the world that people knew.
So many of the inventions in the 1800s changed everyday life, even though the average person didn’t get to experience many of them firsthand until the 1900s. Think about the invention of the telephone. Prior to the telephone, people talked to each other face to face. Before the telegraph, information traveled by letter on horse or by boat, and if we stretched it…by flag waving, smoke signals, or other signaling methods. With the phonograph there was the ability to record a story or music, and to listen to it at later time. And, we could have more sources of light than natural or candle light with the invention of the light bulb and gaslight. Other inventions of the1800s included the typewriter, sewing machine, transatlantic cable, steam locomotive, diesel engine, pasteurization, internal combustion machines, dynamite, and more.
In the year of my grandfather’s birth, 1868, George Westinghouse invented air brakes for railway trains, which provided a reliable way for stopping trains. Robert Mushet invented tungsten steel, which revolutionized the design of machine tools and the progress of industrial metalworking. And, J.P.Knight invented the first (and unsuccessful) traffic lights, first installed in Britain.
Nikola Tesla, born in 1856 and a few miles from my grandfather’s place of birth in Croatia, was a famous and prolific inventor. Tesla also came to America and worked briefly for Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. He sold some of his patents to George Westinghouse, and was friends with Mark Twain and other writers. As most inventors, he was an interesting character.
Industrialization Where my Grandfather Came From
Ivan Crnkovic (later changed to John Crnkovich), was born in Donji Kosinj, a small village in the mountainous region of Lika, located in central Croatia, which was under the rule of the Austrian Empire. Croatia is also considered part of Southeastern Europe and also part of the Balkan region.
The Balkans are a region of countries grouped geo-politically and culturally. Countries making up the Balkan region have varied over time, and have included - Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro. It’s important to know something about the Balkan countries, because as a region, its history affects Croatia’s history through the 1990s.
The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains. It describes the remaining European areas ruled by the Ottoman Empire after 1699 - after a 300-year struggle between the Habsburg Austrian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Croatia was Austrian territory at the time, but always a target of Ottoman control.
The Industrial Revolution of Western Europe was affecting the Ottoman Empire, and thus, the Balkan areas. Goods made using western factory techniques cost less than traditional hand-made goods made from silk cloth, woven in the Ottoman Empire. This put silk weaving into a steep decline, and their economies declined.
There were other things affecting their participation in the Industrial Revolution. People lived in remote forest areas without roads. The Turkish or Ottoman feudal system was still in place, based on subsistence agriculture, and not larger farms that could produce excess food for export and profit. Railroads, as a transportation system, came late to the Balkans.
Money was used for military forces and not invested in industrialized factories, which would have provided jobs and produced income through tax revenues. Overall, the Balkans were not successful in dealing with modernization and remained less advanced than other European and Western countries at the time.
Relative to Croatia
Long after 1699, the area of Croatia in which my grandfather was from, was still being used by Austria as a front line against the Ottomans. And so, the central mountainous area of Croatia was often referred by its own Sabor (Croatia’s Parliament) as, “Turkish Croatia.” It was considered remote, without any factories or large farms, without easy access to the coast to export goods. There was poverty in the majority of Croatia’s peasants because of the reasons noted above.
“Beneath limestone mountains, valleys offer a stingy soil. Worked by a thousand years of Croats, it’s good for goats, grapes and little more.” This was the description of the American travel guide, Rick Steves, who travels Europe, and has radio and TV shows of his travels. He is wrong about the soil, but right about what it’s good for, because of the Karst physical geography. In the region of Lika, the towns of Otocac, Gospic, and Donji Kosinj, and others are part of the karst river area. See the map of the Lika region.
Farming in karst areas must take into account the lack of surface water. The soils may be fertile enough, and rainfall may be adequate, but rainwater quickly moves through the crevices into the ground, sometimes leaving the surface soil parched between rains.* The photo below shows partial Karst features in the Kosinj Valley, posted at Flickr.com by Mezec.
The Lika River area, also known as the Kosinj Valley is quite beautiful. In medieval times, it was important as the heart of the beginnings of Croatia and subsistent farming in a karst area was OK back in those times. But, it didn't work economically in an industrial era.
See below, a popular photographic spot in the Kosinj Valley. This 19th century bridge crosses the Lika River. Both Donji Kosinj (Lower Kosinj) and Gornji Kosinj (Upper Kosinj) have always been villages. There are no large cities nearby today, only other villages or small towns. The area remains quite rural, and Donji Kosinj's population is less than 1000, not unlike many areas of America today. Its economic value today is in nature tourism – hiking, biking, and camping - west to the Velebit Mountains, and east a few miles to the Plitvice National Park. Photo from Flickr.com, posted by Mezec.
Relative to Minnesota
My grandfather’s future place of residence, Minnesota, had become the 32nd state in the United States in 1858. Hibbing, where he settled in 1910, didn’t exist until 1893. Even though Croatia always seemed war torn, America had just ended its own civil war in 1865.
Industrialization had come to America. The markets were in the eastern states and railroads connected those markets west to Chicago. It was important for Minnesota to connect to Chicago, and to the Great Lakes, as speedy transit would bring opportunity and prosperity to the new state. Bringing the “Iron Horse” to an area develops commerce and wealth, and draws people. It would also bring the Industrial Revolution to Minnesota.
Minnesota began talking about bringing railroads to its state in 1847. Their railway system didn’t happen easily. At least 27 companies were authorized and chartered by the legislature by 1857 to build railroads, but nothing came of them. The Panic of 1857 happened, causing a depression. Banks closed and financing wasn’t available or sufficient. Minnesota’s first operating railroad, in 1862, had only 10 miles of railway, between St. Paul and St. Anthony (later Minneapolis). The first railroad was the result of a Minnesota-financed stimulus program, which gave access to $5 million in bond funding to four railroad companies. It was a political disaster for the governor who signed the bill. Minnesota’s credit rating suffered for 40 years as a result of the bonds. The railroad company that built the first operating railroad also went through financial reorganization and other changes to survive. All around, it seemed a failing situation. However painful it was, Minnesota had a railroad!
The economies in Minnesota depended upon transportation - to cities and ports across the nation. Initially Minnesota was a logging and farming economy. In 1850, wheat was the major crop. Cheap and fertile land brought immigrants. Minnesota led the nation in sawmilling from 1848 to 1887. With innovated milling techniques, Minnesota led the nation in flour production between 1880 and 1930. Has anyone heard of Pillsbury, Graham Flour, or Washburn Mills (later General Mills)? Of course, the iron ore mining industry, beginning in 1884, was important to Minnesota and the Crnkovich family, as mining provided my grandfather with employment in America. From 1900 to 1980, the Mesabi Range contributed about 60 percent of the country’s total iron ore. Mining also depended on transportation systems. Minnesota mining provided raw materials for America’s continuing Industrial Revolution.
Did my grandfather come to America because of the promise of the Industrial Revolution, in addition to freedom? Did he wish to escape the continual wars in his area? No one knows for sure why he came here. Remaining family members say they don't know, but I get to speculate about it here.
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*Karst landscape info from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst
To see copyrighted photos of the Kosinj area: http://www.flickr.com/
(search for "Kosinj")
All maps are in the public domain.
