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On This Day
The American Fur Company (AFC) was founded in 1808, by John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant to the United States.[1] During the 18th century, furs had become a major commodity in Europe, and North America became a major supplier. Several British companies, most notably the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, were eventual competitors against Astor and capitalized on the lucrative trade in furs. Astor capitalized on anti-British sentiments and his commercial strategies to become one of the first trusts in American business and a major competitor to the British commercial dominance in North American fur trade. Expanding into many former British fur-trapping regions and trade routes, the company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest and wealthiest businesses in the country.
Astor planned for several companies planned to function across the Great Lakes, the Great Plains and the Oregon Country to gain control of the North American fur trade. Comparatively inexpensive manufactured goods were to be shipped to commercial stations for trade with various Indigenous nations for fur pelts. The sizable number of furs collected were then be brought to the port of Guangzhou, as pelts were in high demand in the Qing Empire. Chinese products were in turn be purchased for resale throughout Europe and the United States. A beneficial agreement with the Russian-American Company was also planned through the regular supply of provisions for posts in Russian America. This was planned in part to prevent the rival Montreal based North West Company (NWC) to gain a presence along the Pacific Coast, a prospect neither Russian colonial authorities or Astor favored.[2]
Demand for furs in Europe began to decline during the early 19th century, leading to the stagnation of the fur trade by the mid-19th century. Astor left his company in 1830, the company declared bankruptcy in 1842, and the American Fur Company ultimately ceased trading in 1847.
Born On This Day
1913 – Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune, American geographer and academic (d. 1993)
Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune (April 6, 1913 – January 4, 1993) was an American geographer.
Early life and education
Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune was born in Sonchon, in what is now North Korea, as the son of Presbyterian educational missionaries George McCune and his wife) Helen (McAfee. His older brother was George McAfee McCune and they had two sisters. After receiving his elementary education in Korea, the younger McCune moved to the United States for college, graduating with a bachelor’s degree from the College of Wooster in 1935. [1] He earned a master’s degree from Syracuse University. After receiving his Ph.D. in geography from Clark University in 1939, McCune taught at Ohio State University.
He was the chairman of the geography department at Colgate University from 1947 to 1955, and the provost of the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1955 to 1961. He left academia and the United States to serve as the first civilian civil administrator of the Ryukyu Islands from 1962-64. He became the president of the University of Vermont in 1965, but resigned one year later for a research trip to Asia. In 1969 until his retirement in 1979 he was a professor of geography at the University of Florida in Gainesville.[2][3]
FYI
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Recipes
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