1.8: Cold War and Counterculture
Victory for Civil Rights after World War II
The early 1950s marked a series of victories for the civil rights of African Americans and other marginalized people in Oregon. In 1949, a young black woman and her child were forced to sit in the segregated balcony at the Egyptian Theater on Portland’s Union Avenue. As a result of this incident a case was built to defeat segregation laws in public accommodations. Attorney Irvin Goodman drafted a statute to end Jim Crow segregation practices in Portland. He helped lead the fight to get it passed by Portland City Council. On February 22, 1950, by unanimous vote, Portland became the second city in the United States to ban racial discrimination in places of public accommodation. The state also prohibited discrimination in employment based on race, religion, color, or national origin, and a commission on intergroup relations was created. Although senators in the state capitol were hesitant, Oregon’s miscegenation law from 1866 was repealed in 1951, sixteen years before the U.S. Supreme Court declared interracial laws unconstitutional in the landmark decision Loving v. Virginia . A public accommodations law was established in 1953 that forbade discrimination in places of public accommodation like resorts or amusement parks, and established the right of all persons to equal facilities. It was the first major civil rights breakthrough since the 1920s. Some restaurants defied the tenor of the integrationist laws. They still held signs in their windows that read “White Trade Only-Please”; one such restaurant was Waddle’s, formerly located near the Interstate Bridge in Portland. Conservative groups, such as the Civil Freedom Committee, sought to oppose the repeal, but they failed to collect enough signatures to get a referendum on the law that was passed by the Oregon Senate.
Residential Segregation and Resistance in Oregon
The Portland Urban League sponsored a visit of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. to the city of Portland in 1961, and he spoke to an overflowing and receptive audience of more than 3,500 at the Portland Civic Auditorium. He encouraged his audience to fight for civil rights in Oregon by sharing the national progress being made by the Freedom Rides in Alabama and students protesting segregation at lunch counters in Mississippi: “If democracy is to live, segregation must die. Segregation is a cancer in the body of democracy that must be removed if the health of the nation is to survive.”
The Portland Urban League was founded in 1945 by a coalition of white and black Portlanders, including Dr. DeNorval Unthank, the Catholic and Episcopal Archdiocese, and the Jewish B’nai B’rith in response to the mounting housing crisis and fears of racial violence in Portland. Some of the coalition represented residents from the Eastmoreland, Council Crest and Grant Park neighborhoods. Dr. Unthank led a committee that investigated the practices and policies of the Portland Housing Authority, stating, “Present policies of tenant selection and placement have resulted in racially concentrated projects,” and that “racial concentrations were based on location.” The committee argued that the practices of the Housing Authority continued to produce intergroup tensions in Portland.
Edwin Berry, the executive director of the Portland Urban League, lobbied the legislature to adopt the Fair Employment Practices law. The legislature approved the measure, and Oregon became one of a handful of states in the nation to have a law banning employment discrimination. Berry and the Portland Urban League were instrumental in getting the Public Accommodations law passed through an active canvassing campaign. The Portland Urban League declared housing to be its greatest concern that year, and reported racist landlords left African Americans few options in the housing market. Realtors often directed black families to the Albina district, but some families moved in other areas in Portland and were met with resistance in all-white neighborhoods. A Word War II veteran moved his family into an all-white neighborhood and had a crossed burned on his front lawn. The Oregonian newspaper seized on this moment to educated the public on the topic of housing discrimination in their community, and helped bring awareness and get legislation passed. Segregation suddenly became a pressing political issue. As a result the Fair Housing Law was passed in 1957 which allowed blacks to move out of the Albina district to all white-neighborhoods in the suburbs of Portland.
Realtors, banks, and the Federal Housing Authority allowed for neighborhoods in America to practice de facto segregation and Oregon was no exception. In 1919, the Portland Realty Board had declared it unethical to sell property to a “Negro” or Chinese person in a white neighborhood. The realtors allegedly felt it was best to segregate people of color from whites in Portland so as to not cause depreciation in property values in white neighborhoods. The resettlement of Vanport flood victims reinforced patterns of segregation. Most African-Americans in Oregon lived in Portland, and the city’s continued neglect of public housing, combined with discrimination in realty and finance, created a disproportionate concentration of people of color in the Albina district. As more black people moved into the Williams Avenue area, the unofficial name of the city’s black district changed from Williams to Albina. By 1960, 80 percent of Portland’s 15,000 African American residents lived in the Albina District. The student population of the four elementary schools in the neighborhood, King, Humboldt, Boise and Eliot, were 90 percent black. [1]
De Facto Segregation of Schools
The Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 broke ground on the desegregation of schools in America. However, states like Arkansas actively resisted against integration of their public schools where a showdown between Governor Orval Faubus, Daisy Bates of the NAACP, and attorney Thurgood Marshall boiled over during the integration Little Rock Central High School. The story drew national attention when President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to escort nine African American students into the building. Whereas Oregonians did not have deeply entrenched segregationist policies in public schools. Josiah Failing, W.S. Ladd and E.D. Shattuck, board members of the Portland Public Schools, established a “Colored School.” [2] The segregated school remained open between 1867 and 1872 until thirty African American students were integrated into the Portland Public Schools. Since that time, de jure segregation has not existed in the public schools of Portland.
In response to Brown v. Board of Education, Portland Public Schools stated they provided equal education in their schools and the issue of segregation wasn’t a concern for the district. But de facto segregation of African American families existed in the city. By the 1960s, 80 percent of Portland’s African American population lived in the Albina district in Northeast Portland, and the African American community only accounted for 3 percent of the state’s population. The Oregonian noted the Eliot School in Lower Albina had 413 black children, and there are three whites, and one Chinese student in 1964. [3] At the Boise School, the student population was 85 percent African American. The issue of desegregation of schools in Portland remained to be a problem through the 1980s, and the Portland district failed to fully address the issue of segregation and its wider impact on the urban community.
Through the early 1960s, Oregon’s black community faced institutional discrimination, which meant black students continued to lag far behind the state’s average in education, occupational status, and income. African-Americans who sought to buy homes for their families faced discrimination despite passage of the Fair Housing Law. Another daunting problem for the African American community in Portland, like elsewhere in America, was the displacement families experienced under urban renewal projects. The construction of Memorial Coliseum (the former home of the Portland Trailblazers), Interstate 5, and Emmanuel Hospital destroyed many homes and businesses owned by members of the black community. The Eliot School, a racially concentrated school, was a victim of this form of “urban renewal”. The closest school to the Lloyd Center development was the Irvington School. When African American students arrived at Irvington, a few white families transferred their children to other schools in response.
Segregation was certainly felt in Oregon’s institutions of higher learning as well. In September 1943, Estella Mare Allen enrolled at the University of Oregon and was assigned to a single room as her domicile; she was told it was the only accommodation that was available for a black student. The following year, she was assigned a single room again, so she decided to live with three other female black students on campus. They were assigned an inferior dorm located next to the gymnasium, Gerlinger Hall. When the students complained that their living situation was inadequate and would prohibit their ability to study, the director of the dormitories told the students they would be moved into Susan Campbell Hall, but the white students and their parents objected.
Later in 1946, Barbara Kletzing, a white student, wished to live with Allen. The director of dormitories denied the students’ request stating the living arrangement allegedly was illegal according to state law, even though Allen lived with a white roommate the previous year on campus. A new college regulation stipulated that “neither Negro girls or boys will be permitted to room with white girls and boys, and Negroes will be kept to a minimum in the dormitories at the University of Oregon.” The University President stated in a letter to Allen, “We reserve the right to place students as we see fit in the dormitories. This policy and interpretation was the result of adverse public opinion concerning minority groups on the campus.” He further stated the situation was “too bad” and he was “very sorry [Allen] persisted in making a fuss over nothing.” [4] Kletzing, in a statement to the press during the heat of the controversy stated, “I, as a native white Oregonian, am not convinced however, that the people of Oregon have completely lost the love for individual freedom which they marched across the continent to establish.”
The president of the college, Harry Newburn held his position after inquiries by the NAACP and the Portland Urban League. In a letter to Edwin Berry he defended the college’s actions as legally justifiable: “As I stated to you last year, we believe this is entirely proper and that the long-range solution of the problem will be advanced through such leadership on the part of an institution such as ours. We reserve the right to put people together as we think best for the group and the State of Oregon.” Some white residents of Eugene, where the University of Oregon is located, defended the school’s position and used de facto segregation in the South as a reference point, where they claimed people never hear of complaints of discrimination. They argued that agitation for equal rights and fair treatment would only exacerbate the problem and make people become more prejudiced. This was the customary response among Oregonians who resisted civil rights reform and change throughout the state’s history: don’t upset the apple cart.
Cold War Tensions: Fear of Leftist Subversives in Oregon
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began with both nations reaching an impasse over the division of Europe and the competing spheres of influence between capitalism and communism around the globe. American diplomat George Kennan was instrumental in creating a world panic over the threat of a Soviet-led imperialism that could control all of Europe and Asia. Kennan stated the United States must meet this threat with an international obligation centered on containment of the Soviet Union. [5] On the home front, the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the House of Representatives, was created in 1938 to investigate disloyalty among citizens, politicians and organizations considered subversive who supported Fascist or Communist groups. In 1947, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), gave a speech before members of the committee stating the FBI and HUAC are aligned towards the same goals and “quarantine is necessary to keep it [Communism] from infecting the nation.” Hoover targeted liberal policies as “window dressing” for Communist tactics, and the infiltration of communists into trade unions was a grand design of Lenin and Marx. Hoover called out the AFL and CIO to be on the alert for these threats, and the unions dutifully heeded the warning.
The CIO convention in Portland the following year became an orchestrated purge, and all unions suspected of having Communist ties were expelled from the organization. In 1949, the Oregon legislature barred all persons “linked to Communists” from state employment, and a “loyalty oath” was included in job applications. It was part of a larger national trend where employees across industries—teachers, physicians, journalists, scientists, tradespeople, and others—were mandated to sign loyalty oaths or affidavits, or face termination from their jobs. The Oregon legislature tried to purge those labelled “subversives” who held beliefs perceived hostile to the government by barring them from employment in Oregon. The thought was that without a stable job, they would be more likely to leave the state. Laws designed to protect Americans from communism were based on the legal precedent of the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1918, that a person’s beliefs could be considered a “clear and present danger” to national interests. When the Espionage and Seditions Acts were passed into law, the FBI began a lengthy tenure of intensive surveillance of American citizens that lasted until 1971. Under the guise of the “clear and present danger” principle initiated during the time of the Russian Revolution, internal threats could be associated with forms of political thought that were inimical to American power, and those expressing criticism could be labeled as criminals as seen in the Oregon Criminal Syndicalism law of 1930.
Entering the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy, the junior Senator from Wisconsin, became the face of HUAC. His name became associated with character assassination, libelous slander, and the destruction of peoples’ careers and reputations. He was known for his $64,000 question “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”, and if Americans refused to answer, they could be prosecuted and arrested for contempt of Congress. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas associated McCarthyism with the “Black Silence of Fear” which was a landmark article in the New York Times assailing anxieties unleashed during the age of McCarthyism and its Great Inquisition. He warned Americans about arrogance, intolerance and militarism as grave threats to democracy and the free exchange of ideas. Douglas emphasized Stalinist communism prohibited the free marketplace of ideas and enforced state party orthodoxy. In America, fear guided lawmakers and citizens, and those who veered away from ideological orthodoxy were pilloried by the community. Douglas was an ardent supporter and defender of First Amendment rights. During his career on the bench at the United States Supreme Court, two attempts were made to impeach Douglas; one of those efforts was led by United States Representative Gerald Ford. Justice Douglas questioned the excesses of the containment of Communism in foreign policy and attempted to halt the bombing of Vietnam by U.S. war planes. Douglas also had a love for the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest and Oregon. He admired the groundbreaking work of scientist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, an expose on the dangers of pesticides, and supported environmental causes in Oregon such as reducing pollution of the Willamette River and the preservation of Waldo Lake in Oregon.
HUAC hearings took place in Portland in 1954 to investigate and expose American citizens who were suspected of being communist subversives, or demonstrated opposition to any form of investigation of the “Communist conspiracy”. Four Portland residents, all World War II veterans, were arrested for failing to cooperate with HUAC. Linus Pauling, the Nobel-winning chemist who taught at Oregon State University, wrote a public statement condemning the persecution of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. He had been suspended from the Atomic Energy Commission, by HUAC, because they claimed he posed a security risk. The Oregonian slammed Pauling for his “fuzzy thinking” on Dr. Oppenheimer, and felt those associated with communists were most likely corrupted by them.
Politicians opposed to civil rights often associated the movement with Communist sympathies and advocacy. Southern conservative congressmen preyed upon the idea that subversives were controlling the civil rights movement. They claimed alien elements with radical ideologies brought racial discord into Southern states that “Russia is directing the civil rights campaign to create a ‘great brown race’ in the South,” where communism and integration were considered “inseparable.” [6] J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI was also a proponent of the idea that civil rights and communist subversion were interconnected, and during the 1960s, the FBI engaged in efforts to monitor and disrupt the civil rights movement, especially the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and its leader Rev. Martin Luther King who the FBI viewed as “a likely target for Communist infiltration.”
The NAACP and the civil rights movement in Oregon continued its efforts to separate itself from Communists by declaring, “The Association will employ every reasonable measure in keeping with democratic organizational principles to prevent the endorsers, the supporters and defenders of a Communist conspiracy from joining or participating in any way in the work of the NAACP.” [7] The civil rights movement proceeded with caution due to Cold War tensions and conservative movements like the John Birch Society that opposed liberalism and social reform.
Julia Eaton Ruuttila participated in a City Hall demonstration for victims of the 1948 Vanport flood, many of whom remained homeless or had been assigned trailers by the Housing Authority of Portland. It became known to the protestors that the Housing Authority of Portland had been looking to close Vanport after the war, and board members wanted to eliminate it. Groups that supported the Vanport flood victims included the Oregon Wallace for President Committee, the Oregon CIO council, and the Oregon Communist Party along with the Oregon State Grange. The protest had interracial unity, and even achieved notoriety among celebrity activists. The actor and singer Paul Robeson, who later in his career was labelled a “communist subversive”, visited Portland to show his support for the refugees of Vanport. Several onlookers remarked at the demonstrators, “Why don’t they go back where they came from?” [8] Because of her association with the vanguard of the old left of Oregon, Ruuttila was attacked by members of the local media, such as S. Eugene Allen, editor of the Oregon Labor Press, who scathingly denounced her as “another energetic little lady who promotes the Communist Party line.” She was fired from her secretarial job at the Multnomah County Public Welfare Commission two weeks later for her involvement in other demonstrations associated with leftist groups. These activists were becoming increasingly targeted and alienated during the age of McCarthyism.
Julia Ruuttila was an advocate for social justice, known for her leftist beliefs and a devoted union-labor activist. She was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC in Seattle in December of 1956 while she was living in Astoria. She was called before HUAC who questioned her writings in Communist newspapers that criticized actions of the American government. Congressman Gordon Scherer of Ohio asked Ruuttila if she opposed the Soviet actions in Hungary, and she stated she did. She was then asked if this caused her to want to break from the Communist Party. Richard Arens, the head attorney of HUAC, asked Ruutilla if she wanted to apologize for anything she has written. During the hearing, she was accused of being one of the “principal propagandists in the Northwest Communist conspiracy” because of her work to unionize lumber mills throughout the region. She invoked her fifth amendment rights and declined to state whether she was active in the Astoria and Clatsop County Committees for the Protection of the Foreign Born. [9] Work in this organization was directed at reforming the McCarran-Waters Immigration Act, which barred suspected Communists from entering the country.
Anti-Communism and the John Birch Society in Oregon
Oregon held conservative momentum to counterbalance liberal, progressive, and radical ideals entering the 1960s. The John Birch Society (JBS) claimed a few thousand members in the state of Oregon. Its founder, Robert Welch, spoke to audiences at Cleveland High School in Portland in 1966. The John Birch Society was a self-avowed anti-Communist group who stood opposed to leftist views, even considering the United Nations a “Communist instrument to control the world”. The group would pick up from where the Red Scare and antagonism of the House of Unamerican Activities Committee had left off in the previous decade.
Wallace Lee organized the John Birch Society in Oregon in 1959, and there were chapters in Grants Pass, Medford, Eugene, Newport, Lebanon, and Portland. The largest percentage of Birch members belonged to evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant Christian denominations. Early members included business executives and working professionals; by early 1961, the Oregon JBS had a dozen chapters, with four in Portland alone. In Eugene, the JBS fought against fluoridation of water, the United Nations, and radicalism at the University of Oregon which came to a head while Thomas McCall was governor. The Birch Society reached its peak nationally in the mid-1960s, but left a lasting impression in American political thought for decades.
Drawing from the legacy of McCarthyism, the JBS fueled the resurgent conservatism of the 1960s and was an ideological conduit for the New Right of the 1970s. President Richard Nixon led a grievance movement among American conservatives who he called the Silent Majority. They experienced a historical reckoning when the construction workers union assaulted student protestors on the streets of Manhattan and resisted against flags that were lowered in the wake of the Kent State University shootings on May 8th, 1970. [10] The Building and Construction Trades Council was led by Peter Brennan who was instrumental in fomenting the counter-protest and with support from the Nixon administration, union stewards were telling workers to join the fight.
John Birchers embraced the film Operation Abolition, which was produced by HUAC and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, and held viewing parties for educational purposes. The film claimed “violent prone leftist radicals” under Communist influence wanted to destroy HUAC, to discredit the FBI’s “great director” J. Edgar Hoover, and “render sterile the security laws of our government.” [11] John Birchers opposed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 advocated by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The John Birch Society became a living relic of the Cold War, with small chapters and a few American Opinion bookstores surviving past the year 2000 in places like Grants Pass, Hood River, and Portland.
The John Birchers built upon a historical, ideological trend that linked anti-radicalism with social conservatism. They seized upon an increasingly polarized American society caused by rifts due to Cold War political and social anxieties, and the conservative backlash against the civil rights movement. They proclaimed “no compromise and no coexistence” with those who were their sworn enemies. Anti-communism, disillusionment with the Eisenhower administration, and a concern about social issues brought John Birchers of Oregon together. Many felt President Eisenhower had allowed liberalism and Communist supporters to capture the Republican Party. Robert Welch labelled the president “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” [12] Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, one of the primary architects of the second Red Scare agreed with that statement, and helped spread that rumor.
Urban Renewal and the African-American community in Portland
In the late 1960s, patience wore thin among the black community of Portland, and other American cities, with discrimination in housing and employment, destructive urban renewal projects, and police brutality. Portland experienced civil disorder during the “Long Hot Summer” of 1967 along with other cities around the United States, with race riots in the Albina District. In 1968, the Kerner Report on Civil Disorders set up by the Johnson administration in the wake of the race riots, declared the nation was moving toward two separate societies, white and black, and separate and unequal. The City Club of Portland the same year released the Report on Problems of Racial Justice in Portland . It documented evidence of racial discrimination and that “causative conditions persist to the present and demand action.” A section of the report titled “Police Policies, Attitudes and Practices,” stated that the Mayor of Portland and Chief of Police thought the findings of the Kerner Report didn’t apply to Portland, and went on to indicate that reform in the police department would be impossible until there was “a fundamental change in the philosophy of officials.” [13]
City planners and developers also contributed to the alienation of residents of the Albina District with destructive urban renewal projects, such as the Lloyd Center Mall and the Memorial Coliseum. African-Americans were increasingly frustrated by the demolition of hundreds of their homes and businesses to make way for events centers, highways, and public works projects, like Emmanuel Hospital. This created a diminution of faith in public officials. In all, the urban renewal projects of the Albina District wiped out the densest concentration of African-Americans and their community in Oregon. More than 600 homes were destroyed, along with the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was the second oldest church in Portland, and many black-owned shops and businesses. Dr. DeNorval Unthank’s medical offices were destroyed on two separate occasions by urban renewal projects.
The City Club report cited that in Portland, “substandard housing conditions exist most notably in the Albina district, but also in the southwest region of the city. There are mounting concerns over unsound and substandard buildings, fire conditions, sanitation issues and vermin, as well as litter.” [14] For the disenfranchised black community of Portland, rental homes and apartments were hard to find, real estate brokers were not color blind to potential renters, and lenders were reported as preferentially lending to whites over blacks of comparable financial standing. People of the black community were often told housing was not available, or that property had been taken off the market, or that another person had claimed a deposit and they would be called if the loan application did not go through. Blacks, in contrast to whites, were placed at a disadvantage in negotiating for purchase of property and subjected to a so-called “black tax,” which was not technically a tax, but did ensure that their offers could be refused if below the asking price, even though the majority of sales to whites was made below the asking price. Some real estate brokers harbored discriminatory attitudes and felt working with the African-American community would stigmatize their business interests. Some businessmen were hesitant to hire African-Americans even though most of their customers were black. Financial institutions were reluctant to offer business loans to African Americans as well. “[African Americans] cannot get a loan to start a business,” stated J. Allon Page, assistant chief investigator for the State Department of Justice, Welfare Recovery Division. “The financial institutions have offered woefully inadequate opportunities to experienced qualified blacks who want to go into business.” [15]
Radical Movement in the African American community
In the latter half of the 1960s, the black radical movement began to pick up momentum in various American cities, including Portland due to mounting frustration, disillusionment and resentment. The Portland Black Panther Party (BPP) was a part of the radical protest movement in Oregon during the 1960s and 1970s. Radical political groups in America like the Weathermen, an anarchist terrorist group, were bombing buildings and had aspirations to destroy the techno-capitalist system. The Black Panthers were not an anarchist terrorist organization. Their motivations were based on racial pride and preservation: African Americans’. first and second amendment rights (freedom of speech and right to bear arms), resisting police brutality, and providing social services such as free breakfast programs for children and healthcare. The party acquired its name from the work of Stokely Carmichael, a black leader, who became a prominent force in the civil rights movement in Alabama, a Jim Crow state, getting the vote out to disenfranchised blacks. The black panther symbolized the potency of the black franchise and a renewed activism in the African American community. Like many other radical protest groups, the BPP started in Portland because the black community had lost faith in public officials and held deep resentment towards the police. There was a lack of black representation in law enforcement, and white officers often used violence towards the African American community. There was a short lived Black Panther Party in Eugene as well.
African American radicals paid a price for their outspokenness, especially if they joined the Black Panther movement. The Portland Police after the Albina riot of 1967, bore down with increased surveillance on activists, their friends, and families in the Albina District. The Intelligence Unit of the Portland Police Department monitored all their movements where an Albina resident commented, “We feel like we are being watched all the time.” [17] At the federal level, the FBI declared war on activists when J. Edgar Hoover expanded the domestic counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO). The program primarily targeted leftist groups along with the Ku Klux Klan as hate groups. COINTELPRO sought to “expose and disrupt” black nationalist groups like the BPP as “hate-type organizations.” COINTELPRO designated resources to the local Portland FBI office and they coordinated efforts with the Portland Police to suppress the Panthers. Whereby spying on political organizations like the BPP was considered a legitimate police function and in a 1966 survey, police officials felt keeping track of subversives was the eighth most important responsibility of the police, above “traffic duties” and “helping little old ladies.” [18]
Originally the BPP started as a branch of the National Committee to Combat Fascism. The Portland BPP represented the black residents of the city who openly opposed city government and demanded complete control of the Albina District. Student protestors at Portland State University sided with their goals and were influenced by the activism and ideological underpinnings of the Portland BPP. The Portland Panthers chose to tackle such issues as poverty, use of extralegal force by police, inadequate health care services, general disfranchisement, and substandard educational opportunities. The Portland FBI office tried to persuade doctors to stop volunteering at the Black Panthers’ health and dental clinics. [19] People from the African-American community remember the Black Panther health, breakfast, and tutoring programs, while white residents and law enforcement officials saw the BPP as a threat to society that had to be removed. Kent Ford, a leader of the Portland Black Panthers, remembered “being hunted” and recalled long nights sitting “at the front door with a shotgun, waiting for a raid”. FBI agents and the Portland Police not only sat outside of Ford’s home, but approached and harassed their friends, families, and employers, as well as infiltrating Panther meetings.
Student Protests during the Vietnam War
A blossoming student protest movement representing a reconfiguration of the New Left swept across colleges and universities throughout the United States as the nation was pulled deeper into the Vietnam War quagmire. Some of the foundational elements that propelled the student movement were Tom Hayden, founder of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and author of the Port Huron Statement, Mario Savio, a key member of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley, and Ella Baker who mentored student activists like Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael and organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). All of these civil rights pioneers envisioned American colleges and universities as epicenters of empathetic cultural and cognitive change built on interpersonal relationships and a rejection of autocratic rule in societies and school administrations. Under their vision, institutions of higher learning served as crucibles of social reform and progenitors of authentic democratic values. Groups like the SDS and SNCC were making impactful strides in the civil rights movement through sit-ins at lunch counters and Freedom Rides. Students, professionals, clergy and others were devoted to non-violent protest and civil disobedience as catalysts for public awareness and engines of change. New York City, Portland, Oregon and Berkeley, California earned notoriety for their burgeoning counterculture movements. Columbia University, UC Berkeley and Portland State University were hornets’ nests of student protest and activity. According to the police, “Kids were flocking to Portland from everywhere in the country…where they could indulge in drugs like LSD and marijuana.” [20]
The University of Oregon was impacted by the international New Left movement that swept across college campuses. Dr. John R. Froines was a professor of chemistry at the university. He, along with Tom Hayden, were part of the Chicago Seven who were accused of conspiracy and inciting a riot. They were also charged with crossing state lines to conspire to commit violence in a series of protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Froines was acquitted of conspiracy at the infamous Chicago Seven trial in which Federal District Judge Julius Hoffman had Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale gagged and bound to a chair. Dr. Robert Clark, University of Oregon president, found no grounds to dismiss the professor from his academic duties. He stated, “Froines did not incite students to action prohibited by law or by the disciplinary code,” and that “conduct flagrantly unbecoming a faculty member” was not a sufficiently objective standard to be used in charges leading to dismissal. [21]
Clark defended Froines’s right of protest as a protected constitutional right scripted by our forefathers. He quoted Thomas Jefferson on the freedom of speech at the University of Virginia: “This institution will be based upon the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” Oregon State representative Stafford Hansell, a Republican rancher from Hermiston, demanded that Froines be removed from the faculty. Hansell stated the support of student militancy and the Black Panthers had “given the state of Oregon a real black eye throughout the nation.” [22] Hansell, along with State Senator Lynn W. Newbry of Talent, Oregon, visited the campus of Oregon State University to tell faculty members that Oregonians were frustrated with their inability to instill discipline among the students. Disorders and violence had caused a deep-seated bitterness in the people of Oregon. Newbry told the faculty that he and Hansell were not there to tell them how to do their jobs, “We are here as legislators to help you people solve these problems.” He went on to say, “The general public does not understand higher education and the fact remains that they are deeply incensed by what is going on.” [23]
Governor Tom McCall released a press statement explaining that Dr. Froines, although he made a number of speeches advocating for the closure of a number of universities, had broken no laws and was able to remain at the university. Privately, McCall felt that Froines had “engaged in conduct contrary to the best interests of the system of higher education and inconsistent with his continuation as an employee. I feel a sense of frustration. I know what should be done, but there is no legal way this can be accomplished.” [24] The State Board of Higher Education was formulating a new code of conduct for faculty members and Governor McCall tried to leverage the changes, stating Froines was being put on notice, “he must conduct himself as a responsible member of the faculty, or else be subjected to immediate disciplinary action.” Froines said in response, “McCall is running for reelection this year. He obviously has made the decision that I’m a profitable campaign issue, and that political repression against me will result in his election.” [25] Eventually Dr. Froines was terminated from his tenure at the University of Oregon on June 30, 1971.
There were a series of student-led protests on college campuses between 1968 and 1970 at the University of Oregon, Portland State, Treasure Valley Community College, Reed College, and Oregon State University—where the ROTC building was firebombed. Governor McCall consistently distanced his political ideology from the far right and castigated Vice President Spiro Agnew’s incendiary attacks against student protestors by claiming, “Much of the spirit of unrest had been engendered by the Vice President’s unceasing attack on younger Americans…a steadily sarcastic running down our youth by a high official is hardly what this nation needs.” [26]
Blowback Against Student Protests
Not all students advocated or supported the actions of the ascendant New Left, and many felt their right to an education was being taken away or disrupted by the hyper-political atmosphere. Oregon conservatives pressured Governor McCall to consider a petition for a Teacher Investigation Law, which would have created grounds for termination of faculty whose conduct was “flagrantly unbecoming.” Business owners in Eugene wrote to McCall stating, “Students radicalized by faculty” were a threat to society, and they were “pill popping, LSD taking, influenced by the radical anarchistic speakers that the University seems to attract in the name of civil liberties or individual freedom.” Ultimately, many in Oregon felt “evil teachings should have no place in the educational system.” McCall received many petitions demanding the removal of faculty. The petition stated in its introductory heading,
“As a member of the Silent Majority a voter and taxpayer of the state of Oregon, I am angered and appalled at the state of anarchy that exists at our Universities and colleges. Any student participating in a demonstration that is prohibited by the rules of the member aiding or abetting in an organized protest, and any administrator who does not enforce the law should be terminated.” [27]
The blowback against the student protest movement was led by a conservative resurgence with the election of President Richard Nixon who addressed middle and working class Americans as part of a Silent Majority in 1969: “If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this Nation has no future as a free society.” [28] Nixon presented student protestors as an existential threat to the country. He repeated that message the following year when he announced the United States was expanding the war into Cambodia. “We live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions which have been created by free civilizations in the last 500 years. Even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed.” [29] The next day, four million students went on strike across American campuses, and on May 4th, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on protestors at Kent State University killing 4 students and injuring nine. Two weeks later, city and state police opened fire on students at Jackson State University killing two and wounding twelve, and about 400 bullets or pieces of buckshot were fired into the dormitory building, Alexander Hall at Jackson State.
Other Oregon politicians caught on to the furor to remove noncompliant faculty and instill law and order on college campuses. State representative Gerald Detering on May 15, 1970, the day of the Jackson State killings, pleaded for more law and order policies on Oregon college campuses:
“[The] Board of Higher Education [should] measure up to their obligation of providing law and order on the campuses of state supported institutions of higher learning, investigate with full authority to deal with and remove if necessary such faculty members who cooperate, aid or abet, and to participate in campus uprisings, most activities or other lawless actions that may or could require the presence of police or other law enforcement personnel.” [30]
Police Clash with Students at Portland State University
Historians have noted the class divide between law enforcement personnel and their families, and the student protestors who were active during the Vietnam War. The students of the New Left typically were middle-class whites who came from a more privileged background, compared to the working-class families of police officers. This class division was felt when police violently engaged student protestors on the campuses of Columbia University and Portland State University.
Previous to the police attacks on the student protestors, a number of Portland State University students met on May 4th, 1970, to discuss a student strike in response to the United States’ involvement in Cambodia. A group of students began to formulate plans for the strike with the idea of focusing attention on the President’s action in Cambodia and to “help make the classroom activities more relevant to the troubles of the world.” [31] Students focused their strike on four issues: the bombing of Cambodia, the shipping of nerve gas into Umatilla, Oregon (Governor McCall also opposed it), the death of the students at Kent State, and the trial of Black Panther Bobby Seale. The weekend after the Kent State shooting, a coalition of Portland State and local activists staged rallies and marches into downtown Portland. The colleges of Lewis and Clark, Marylhurst, and Portland Community College remained open during this time. The student strike swept through the campus in downtown Portland, and thoroughfares and roads were barricaded by the students. The Park Blocks barricades became “communities of brotherhood,” and symbolized the spirit of the student strike and resistance. The barricades were given different names, like Fort Tricia Nixon, Freedom Suite, Katanga Junction, and Bobby Seal Memorial, which changed its name after a garbage truck smashed through it; it was renamed Wipe Out Alley. [32]
On May 11, 1970, the Portland Police Tactical Operations division descended onto the South Park Blocks, clearing the area of makeshift barricades. Nearly 170 police officers attacked strikers and supporters as the students linked arms around a hospital tent. The students were attacked by a marching wedge of police officers armed with riot sticks. The officers clubbed and punched anyone in the park not wearing a police uniform. No one was spared; officers even bludgeoned a student on crutches. The action sent thirty-one people to the hospital. Tom Geil, a student taking photographs for the Vanguard, Portland State’s student paper, captured on film baton-swinging police officers assaulting student protestors on campus. “I just felt this anger…I never thought they would actually go in and start hitting people.” Similar to the Kent State and Jackson State shootings, the violence at Portland State lasted less than two minutes.
Dr. Gregory Wolfe, the president of Portland State indicated, “The university did not call the police. In fact we were attempting to persuade City Hall to postpone their actions when the order to move was given to the Police Tactical Squad.” [33] It was later revealed that Portland Mayor Terry Schrunk played a major role in the police suppression of protestors. Political pressure had been mounting from citizenry, state officials, and Portland State students, who were outraged by the peaceful demonstrations at PSU. Mayor Schrunk was getting calls from “substantial businessmen who offered to get their shotguns and chase those people out.” [34] Frustrated students and citizens demanded that campus be reopened and the barricades be taken down, and the mayor agreed. The original settlement between the university administration, and the mayor’s office was that the barricades would be taken down with a “symbolic” number of police in attendance, twelve or so, not 170. [35]
After investigations were conducted regarding the police melee at Portland State, several conclusions were made. There was no evidence students were rioting when the police riot squad engaged with the students. All evidence indicated there was relative quiet on both the campus and the Park Blocks prior to the arrival of the riot squad. The police were supposed to be there to assist Portland Parks Bureau with the removal of the barricades, but it was the decision of Mayor Schrunk and the chief of police to remove the hospital tent, inciting the violent encounter. In the final report by the Police Relations Committee, they found the students were not rioting; they were merely dissenting:
“We have found that the police erred in the method used to remove the tent. The [riot] squad resorted to violence in a non-violent situation. In other words, there were other alternatives at the disposal of the police other than the use of force. The most obvious would be to place those who resisted under arrest. We have been unable to find any justification for the use of force by the police as their first step in removing the tent. Neither the law nor standard police procedures can be used to condone unprovoked and unnecessary use of force by police officers.” [36]
Resentment brewed among Portland State students, and a small group discussed retribution for the police beating in the Park Blocks. President Wolfe told Mayor Schrunk, “The circumstances did probably more to create a sense of bitter reaction among students who had been hitherto uninvolved, than anything else that could have happened.” Robert Low, vice president of the college, denounced the incident as “unnecessary violence.” [37]
After the clash with police in the Park Blocks on May 11, there was another protest parade the following day. By the end of the week, 3,000 marchers assembled around City Hall, but Schrunk refused to meet with the protestors. He stated in a press conference, “I am very proud of the actions of the Bureau of the police, the calm they have displayed in the face of obscenities…I am sorry that any blood was spilled, but I also want to point out to the press and the people of Portland there was some phony activities up there. There was some red dye used in some areas.” A local newsman from the KGW TV station asked the mayor, “You spoke of phony activities on the part of the demonstrators. When a police officer knocks down a girl and straddles her and beats her with a club again and again while she is down, is that a phony activity on the part of the police office?” The mayor quickly responded, “I didn’t see it and it’s certainly hard to believe,” to which the reporter interrupted, “We have film.” [38]
In the aftermath of the Portland State melee, A. Lee Henderson, the minister of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopalian Church, empathized with the students who were victimized by police brutality as something he is very familiar with:
“In our own city the local police mishandled the ‘Albina disturbance’ in June 1969 and also at Portland State. There was a slight difference this time at Portland State it was against white people.  [39]
Vortex I Concert and War Protest
McCall worried about the divisiveness of the era and its potential explosiveness. “We are in danger of becoming a society that could commit suicide.” [40] Privately he supported the Cambodian invasion, but he also stated his outrage to Vice President Spiro Agnew: “The nation will not stand for our straying into a new bottomless quagmire in Southeast Asia.” Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon was an early opponent of the Vietnam War and was one of only two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which gave President Johnson and the executive branch unfettered authority and decision making power during the war. Morse stated that, “President Nixon has conducted the war with dishonor. He talks about peace with honor. Let us face up to the fact that we have a President who has waged war with dishonor to the everlasting bloodstain of this republic.” [41]
McCall was sickened by the police violence at Portland State. In June 1970, FBI agents arrived at the governor’s office for a meeting with McCall. They informed the governor they had received word from the Portland FBI that 50,000 young people calling themselves the People’s Army Jamboree were planning to descend onto Portland to protest a visit from President Nixon. The president was giving the keynote address at the national convention of the American Legion in Portland. The Legion was the largest veteran’s group in the nation, and they anticipated 25,000 Legionnaires showing up to the convention. Officials feared the two sides would have erupted into a massive violent riot. According to the Portland FBI, this would have made the Democratic National Convention in Chicago “look like a tea party.” [42] Declassified FBI records showed that local agents’ alarm over a possible clash of the titans between the two polarized groups was greatly exaggerated; the People’s Army Jamboree was a much smaller group than what the Portland FBI had suggested. Most of the intelligence of the Portland branch of the FBI was gathered from the Oregon Journal , the Portland State student newspaper the Vanguard , and informants on the PSU campus. Students protesters could not have organized a People’s Army Jamboree of that size, and yet the leaders of the group enjoyed the press they received and exploited it. People’s Army Jamboree literature whipped up animosity among members of the New Left.  [43]
Two prominent members of the People’s Army Jamboree, Robert Wehe and Glen Swift, visited the governor’s office to propose their plan to state official Ed Westerdahl. The People’s Army wanted an alternative to a possible clash with the American Legion, and the proposal was a rock concert, like Woodstock, to be set up near Portland. The festival was called “Vortex I, A Biodegradable Festival of Life;” and was held at McIver State Park in Clackamas County, thirty miles southeast of Portland in the town of Estacada. A flyer for the concert event read, “The first bio-degradable festival of life laying the groundwork for a totally free, harmonious and ecological celebration of life.  [44]
The festival seemed to solve a potentially major problem. The plan for Vortex was that the state promoted and managed the operations of the concert. When the plan was presented to McCall, his initial reaction was, “Westerdahl, are you crazy?  After he calmed down and thought about it, McCall committed himself to the political gamble of supporting the festival, even with an upcoming reelection bid on the line. [45] Residents of the logging town of Estacada fumed over the plans for Vortex. The governor received angry phone calls from citizens, including a woman who thought the best way to solve the problem of the protestors was to shoot them. [46] Letters came pouring in to the governor’s office from around the state. One from Estacada said, “It is unbelievable that the highest office in our fair state is sanctifying a drug party—Vortex I. The prospect of letting even one hippie contaminate [McIver State Park] it makes us ill, let alone a band of thousands of them for days.” Residents and the press called it a “bread and circus provision” comparable to the days of the Roman Empire.
City officials in Portland were apprehensive about the Portland FBI office stating “a working figure of thirty thousand in the People’s Army Jamboree is not at all unreasonable,” which contrasted from J. Edgar Hoover’s analysis which did not consider the situation as dire or a massive security threat. Nevertheless, McCall was not going to gamble during an election year. There was a push to provide other means than simply a state-sponsored rock festival to prevent violence and chaos. State and city government felt the city should not avoid developing additional plans for facilities and defusing potential violence. The National Guard were put on call and were conducting exercises in Portland which heightened alarm and anxiety throughout the city. The containment of the Vortex situation was officially known as Operation Tranquility to the Oregon National Guard. [47] The American Legion president, J. Miller Patrick, exacerbated the situation and increased people’s anxieties by declaring that the National Guard should be armed and prepared to fire. “Until we treat [protestors] as common criminals, we will never solve the ills of this country,” he said.
McCall was able to take advantage of the impending encounter between the People’s Army and the American Legion. He gave a widely televised speech defending the First Amendment rights of the protestors, and an unrelenting stance toward putting down violence and the forces of anarchy. He defended the Vortex plan as a necessary security measure for the sake of public safety. About 3,000 Oregon Guardsmen were deployed in downtown Portland under orders from the governor “to use minimum force required to accomplish their objective. I stated long ago that I did not intend to see another Kent State episode in Oregon.” [48]
During the course of the week-long rock festival, which ran from August 28 through September 3, police officers assisted concertgoers to the site, and people were allowed to have free reign over certain non-violent offenses like public nudity and drug use. Another music festival called Sky River took place in Washougal, Washington, about thirty miles east of Portland. Estimates were that approximately 50,000 concert goers attended each event. At one point, a group of the People’s Army came close to a clash with Portland City Police, but an elderly woman intercepted the police and waved her finger at them stating, “Go back, you police just make trouble. Why, you even incense me.” [49]
In the end, McCall’s gamble paid off. Vortex I was a success and remains the only state-sponsored rock festival, and McCall easily won reelection. Letters came into the governor’s office supporting his decision for the Vortex plan, and they far outweighed the letters in opposition. Opinions varied throughout the state indicating less political polarization between urban and rural Oregonians; whereas today, the political divide between urban and rural sectors is more glaring and rigid. Some of the praiseworthy letters complimented the governor, “Stroke of genius…let’s have another Vortex festival next year.” Whereas opponents stated, “You are letting the degenerates dictate to you…We have the same policy (appeasement with Hitler) with the scum of the earth known as hippies.” McCall responded to letters with the default refrain that in the end of the potential crisis, there was “a single broken window, and no broken heads.”
During the protest movements that were unleashed during the Vietnam War, Portland and Eugene became epicenters of countercultural activity with coffeehouses, rock concerts, communal living, and other forms of the blossoming counterculture. Ken Kesey, an author who lived in Oregon after attending Stanford University in California, helped inaugurate the counterculture movement and its psychedelic culture through his enduring relationship with the rock band The Grateful Dead. Kesey wrote such classic works of the latter twentieth century as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion . Both novels were transformed into Hollywood films that were shot in Oregon. These cinematic events further put Oregon on the map of the counterculture movement and brought an alternative option to migrants from other parts of the nation seeking solace in a “hippie” environment.
Milos Forman, the director of the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, upon the invitation of the Superintendent of the State Hospital of Oregon Dr. Dean Brooks, was allowed to shoot the film on the campus of the Oregon State Hospital while patients resided there. Forman lived at the Oregon State Hospital for six weeks, along with the actors. Dr. Brooks allowed Forman to study the cases of several patients. Jack Nicholson, one of the actors in the film, witnessed electroshock therapy being administered to a patient at the hospital, and stated the experience completely transformed him. Many film viewers gravitated to the dilapidated condition of the buildings, which were assumed to be props, not actual dwellings for people who lived at the Oregon State Hospital. Dean Brooks argued that the film was not controversial but instead “exploded into consciousness the things we have refused to look at.” Michael Douglas, the producer of the film, stated that Cuckoo’s Nest “was an allegory about life in an authoritarian structure. It was not an attack on mental institutions.” Yet, Oregon ranked in the bottom half of the fifty states in terms of the quality of its mental health services. Regardless of Douglas’s allegory, the film put a dark cloud upon the historical memory of Oregon’s mental health services and institutions. The end of the twentieth century marked a requiem for the Fairview Training Center in Salem, and an exposure of malpractice and violation of patients’ rights at the Oregon State Hospital.
At the end of the twentieth century, Oregon emerged as a state built on progressive values toward human diversity and inclusion. Like other parts of America, the formative years of the counterculture and the Civil Rights Era began to mark indelible political divisions between rural and urban America, and Oregon was no exception. Cultural wars pitted environmentalists against the logging and mining industries, and marginalized groups came under attack such as Hispanics and the gay community in the coming decades.
[1] Serbulo, Leanne and Gibson, Karen: “Black and Blue: Police-Community Relations in Portland’s Albina District, 1964–1985,” Oregon Historical Quarterly , Vol. 114, No. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 6-37
[2] Johnson, Ethan and Williams, Felicia: “Desegregation and Multiculturalism in the Portland Public Schools,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, (Volume 111, no.1, Spring 2010)
[3] The Oregonian, September 15th, 1959.
[4] Stella Maris House Collection, University of Oregon folder, OHS: MSS 1585, Box 3.
[5] Later in his career he stated that containment policy was not the correct approach.
[6] Brown, Sarah Hart: Congressional Anti-Communism and the Segregationist South: From New Orleans to Atlanta, 1954-1958,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 4 (WINTER 1996), pp. 785-816
[7] Resolution NAACP Convention, June 26th 1956.
[8] McElderry, Stuart: “Vanport Conspiracy Rumors and Social Relations in Portland, 1940-1950,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 99, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 134-163.
[9] Julia Ruutila Papers MSS 250 Box 2, Oregon Historical Society Archives
[10] Many college students in America did not support students who protested the war in Vietnam, and were frustrated by the disruptions they created on college campuses. For some, the Kent State shooting were not seen as a tragedy, and they blamed the students for the shootings.
[11] Film: Operation Abolition (1960)
[12] Toy, Eckard: “The Right Side of the 1960s: The Origins of the John Birch Society in the Pacific Northwest,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 105, No. 2 (Summer, 2004), pp. 260-283.
[13] Serbulo, Leanne and Gibson, Karen: p. 6.
[14] Report on Problems of Racial Justice in Portland from Portland City Club Bulletin June 14, 1968, p. 32 in Stella Maris House Collection Box 3 Mss 1585, Oregon Historical Society Archives
[15] The Oregonian, August 18th, 1967.
[16] Eldridge Cleaver, one of the leaders of the BPP, brought negative attention to the group which helped paint a poor picture of the group as potentially racist and misogynist. Cleaver described rape of women as an insurrectionary act, and therefore appropriate.
[17] Serbulo, Leanne and Gibson, Karen: p. 13.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid. p. 14
[20] Ibid, p. 89.
[21] University of Oregon Office of the President, Clark statement re: results of Froines hearing.
[22] President Geoffrey Wolfe Records BOX 14, Student Protest Folder, Portland State University Archives
[23] Ibid.
[24] Tom McCall Papers Collection, Mss 625, Box 11, Oregon Historical Society Archives.
[25] New Republic, September 12, 1970.
[26] Tom McCall Papers, MSS 625 Box 10, Oregon Historical Society.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Presidential Address, November 3rd, 1969.
[29] Presidential Address, April 30th, 1970.
[30] Tom McCall Papers.
[31] Vanguard Newspaper, Portland State University, May 5th 1970.
[32] Vanguard, Portland State University, May 8th, 1970.
[33] President Gregory Wolfe Records BOX 14 Portland State University Archives
[34] The Oregonian, May 7th, 2010.
[35] Report of the Police Relations Committee of the Portland Metropolitan Human Relations Commission: Gregory Wolfe Papers, PSU Archives.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Vanguard Newspaper, May 12th, 1970.
[38] Vanguard Newspaper, May 15th, 1970
[39] Tom McCall Papers. Vietnam and Protest folder.
[40] Fire at Eden’s Gate , p. 284.
[41] Vietnam War: Vertical File Folder, OHS
[42] Fire at Eden’s Gate, p. 287.
[43] Peoples’ Army Jamboree Pamphlet, President Geoffrey Wolfe Records, Box 14, Portland State University Archives
[44] Tom McCall Papers, Oregon Historical Society, MSS 625 Box 11.
[45] Fire at Eden’s Gate, p. 290
[46] Ibid. p. 294
[47] Tom McCall Papers Collection Mss 625 Box 11.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Walth, Brent, Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story , (Oregon Historical Society Press: Portland, 1994) p. 300.


4.2.3: Percent Increase and Decrease with Equations
Lesson
Let's use equations to represent increases and decreases.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\): Number Talk: From 100 to 106
How do you get from one number to the next using multiplication or division?
From 100 to 106
From 100 to 90
From 90 to 100
From 106 to 100
Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\): Interest and Depreciation
- Money in a particular savings account increases by about 6% after a year. How much money will be in the account after one year if the initial amount is $100? $50? $200? $125? \(x\) dollars? If you get stuck, consider using diagrams or a table to organize your work.
- The value of a new car decreases by about 15% in the first year. How much will a car be worth after one year if its initial value was $1,000? $5,000? $5,020? \(x\) dollars? If you get stuck, consider using diagrams or a table to organize your work.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{3}\): Matching Equations
Match an equation to each of these situations. Be prepared to share your reasoning.
- The water level in a reservoir is now 52 meters. If this was a 23% increase, what was the initial depth?
- The snow is now 52 inches deep. If this was a 77% decrease, what was the initial depth?
\(0.23x=52\)
\(0.77x=52\)
\(1.23x=52\)
\(1.77x=52\)
Are you ready for more?
An astronaut was exploring the moon of a distant planet, and found some glowing goo at the bottom of a very deep crater. She brought a 10-gram sample of the goo to her laboratory. She found that when the goo was exposed to light, the total amount of goo increased by 100% every hour.
- How much goo will she have after 1 hour? After 2 hours? After 3 hours? After \(n\) hours?
- When she put the goo in the dark, it shrank by 75% every hour. How many hours will it take for the goo that was exposed to light for \(n\) hours to return to the original size?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{4}\): Representing Percent Increase and Decrease: EQuations
- The gas tank in dad’s car holds 12 gallons. The gas tank in mom’s truck holds 50% more than that. How much gas does the truck’s tank hold? Explain why this situation can be represented by the equation \((1.5)\cdot 12=t\). Make sure that you explain what \(t\) represents.
-
Write an equation to represent each of the following situations.
- A movie theater decreased the size of its popcorn bags by 20%. If the old bags held 15 cups of popcorn, how much do the new bags hold?
- After a 25% discount, the price of a T-shirt was $12. What was the price before the discount?
- Compared to last year, the population of Boom Town has increased by 25%.The population is now 6,600. What was the population last year?
Summary
We can use equations to express percent increase and percent decrease. For example, if \(y\) is 15% more than \(x\),
we can represent this using any of these equations:
\(y=x+0.15x\qquad y=(1+0.15)x\qquad y=1.15x\)
So if someone makes an investment of \(x\) dollars, and its value increases by 15% to $1250, then we can write and solve the equation \(1.15x=1250\) to find the value of the initial investment.
Here is another example: if \(a\) is 7% less than \(b\),
we can represent this using any of these equations:
\(a=b-0.07b\qquad a=(1-0.07)b\qquad a=0.93b\)
So if the amount of water in a tank decreased 7% from its starting value of \(b\) to its ending value of 348 gallons, then you can write \(0.93b=348\).
Often, an equation is the most efficient way to solve a problem involving percent increase or percent decrease.
Glossary Entries
Definition: Percentage Decrease
A percentage decrease tells how much a quantity went down, expressed as a percentage of the starting amount.
For example, a store had 64 hats in stock on Friday. They had 48 hats left on Saturday. The amount went down by 16.
This was a 25% decrease, because 16 is 25% of 64.
Definition: Percentage Increase
A percentage increase tell how much a quantity went up, expressed as a percentage of the starting amount.
For example, Elena had $50 in the bank on Monday. She had $56 on Tuesday. The amount went up by $6.
This was a 12% increase, because 6 is 12% of 50.
Practice
Exercise \(\PageIndex{5}\)
A pair of designer sneakers was purchased for $120. Since they were purchased, their price has increased by 15%. What is the new price?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{6}\)
Elena’s aunt bought her a $150 savings bond when she was born. When Elena is 20 years old, the bond will have earned 105% in interest. How much will the bond be worth when Elena is 20 years old?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{7}\)
In a video game, Clare scored 50% more points than Tyler. If \(c\) is the number of points that Clare scored and \(t\) is the number of points that Tyler scored, which equations are correct? Select all that apply.
- \(c=1.5t\)
- \(c=t+0.5\)
- \(c=t+0.5t\)
- \(c=t+50\)
- \(c=(1+0.5)t\)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{8}\)
Draw a diagram to represent each situation:
- The number of miles driven this month was a 30% decrease of the number of miles driven last month.
- The amount of paper that the copy shop used this month was a 25% increase of the amount of paper they used last month.
(From Unit 4.2.1)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{9}\)
Which decimal is the best estimate of the fraction \(\frac{29}{40}\)?
- \(0.5\)
- \(0.6\)
- \(0.7\)
- \(0.8\)
(From Unit 4.1.5)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{10}\)
Could 7.2 inches and 28 inches be the diameter and circumference of the same circle? Explain why or why not.
(From Unit 3.1.3)


<IP_ADDRESS>: Challenges in Citing Sources
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Here are some challenges that might make knowing when and how to cite difficult for you. Our best advice for how to overcome these challenges is in the first item.
When you are a student taking many classes simultaneously and facing many deadlines, it may be hard to devote the time needed to doing good scholarship and accurately representing the sources you have used. Research takes time. The sooner you can start and the more time you can devote to it, the better your work will be. From the beginning, be sure to include in your notes where you found information you could quote, paraphrase, and summarize in your final product.
Different disciplines require that your citations be in different styles: which publication information is included and in what order. So your citations for different courses could look different, particularly for courses outside your major.
If you are working in a new field or subject area, you might have difficulty understanding the information from other scholars, thus making it difficult to know how to paraphrase or summarize that work properly.
When you are a student taking many classes simultaneously and facing many deadlines, it may be hard to devote the time needed to doing good scholarship and accurately representing the sources you have used. Research takes time. The sooner you can start and the more time you can devote to it, the better your work will be. From the beginning, be sure to include in your notes where you found information you could quote, paraphrase, and summarize in your final product.
Because of new technologies that make finding, using, and sharing information easier, many of our cultural expectations around how to do that are changing as well. For example, blog posts often “reference” other articles or works by simply linking to them. It makes it easy for the reader to see where the author’s ideas have come from and to view the source very quickly. But in these more informal writings, blog authors do not have a list of citations (bibliographic entries). The links do the work for them. This is a great strategy for online digital mediums, but this method fails over time when links break and there are no hints (like an author, title and date) to know how else to find the reference, which might have moved.
This example of a cultural change of expectations in the non-academic world might make it seem that there has been a change in academic scholarship as well, or might make people new to academic scholarship even less familiar with citation. But in fact, the expectations around citing sources in academic research remain formal.


10.6: Early Andes
After migrating through North and Mesoamerica, humans began to craft small campsites and fishing villages along the Pacific coast in South America. Around 3,000 BCE, the villages were replaced by residential and ceremonial centers. This transition was made possible through a new focus on irrigation and communal agriculture.
The Pacific coast and Andean cultures left an incredible amount of material culture (much of it well-preserved because of the dry climate) for archeologists to analyze. The evidence shows that parts of the Classical Andes—modern Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia—possessed the same level of cultural complexity as did China, Persia, and India during the same period. Through this material culture, the Classical peoples begin to separate from their ancient and often less complex ancestors.
This section begins with the end of the archaic period and the rise of a group of civilizations referred to as the Norte Chico .
10.6.1: Norte Chico
The Pacific coast developed large ceremonial and residential centers, which were organized around distinct status and rank among citizens. This area resembled other areas like the Deh Luran Plain of Iraq, the Nile in Egypt, and the Olmec heartland. While similarities with the early civilizations exist, the Norte Chico stands out for three reasons.
- First, it was politically “pristine.” Scholars find no evidence that any outside polity influenced its development.
- Second, it endured for more than 1,300 years. This longevity gave the Norte Chico great influence in what would ultimately become a distinct Andean civilization. For example, large platform mounds of Norte Chico would also appear later in the highland center of Chavín de Huantar .
- Last, the Norte Chico development happened very quickly. By 2800 BCE, there were a number of similar large sites all with residential complexes, plazas, and platform mounds. 18
The Aspero site is an example of a center. It covers 37 acres (fifteen hectares) and contains six platform mounds. While there are a number of large sites like Aspero, there doesn’t seem to have been a central Norte Chico chiefdom or state. There was no Norte Chico capital and no real evidence of conflict or warfare. In addition, scholars find no indication of mass distribution of goods, such as jewelry, clothing, and exotic trade materials. Even shell beads and stone are extremely rare to find.
Usually, a cultural area requires some centralization and large-scale agriculture before scholars refer to it as a civilization. The Norte Chico at least tried to centralize, and may have combined or merged agriculture and fishing in some manner. A number of coastal sites contain remnants of cotton fishing nets and inland products like avocadoes and corn. These remnants suggest that internal canal building was likely possible with the assistance of the coast’s more plentiful labor force. Evidence of communal cooking and eating exists, along with that of communal building.
10.6.2: Chavín de Huantar
Chavín de Huantar is the iconic representation of The Late Initial Period (1800 – 800 BCE), where Peru saw the beginnings of a mix of Andean, coastal, and Amazon cultures. Chavín is located at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters in the Callejon de Conchucos, the easternmost basin between the Cordilleras Negra and Blanca in the Peruvian Andes. It is also midway between the coast and jungle, giving it access to the culture and resources of the greater Andean region. This access made it a pilgrimage center, an importer of luxury goods, and a disseminator first unifying Andean style.
Chavín’s “Old Temple” is 330 feet across the back and more than fifty feet high at its highest. The temple is U-shaped with a sunken court in the middle, and harpy eagle, jaguar, and parading shamans surround it. The temple is also built around the lanzón (great lance) which was a kind of supernatural conduit.
The Tello obelisk contains carvings on all of its sides, which primarily represent tropical and mythical origins or “gifts of the cayman.” Many dualities appear: male-female, plant type, ecological zone, sky-water, life-death, etc. These dualities and their meaning were reinforced by the pilgrimages made to Chavín and the ceremonies contained within them.
Archaeologists have found marine shell trumpets in the tunnel complex under the city and have attempted to replicate how sound would contribute to the mind-altering rituals undertaken at the complex.
The images and rituals have helped establish what scholars refer to as the “Chavín cult.” The Chavín cult presents a universalist message based on the combined elements of coast and highlands that helped bring people to these sites for ceremony and construction. In other words, these ideas helped move the Andes into the state phase. At Chavín, it also seems that there was a leader/priest, like in Egypt. Therefore, it was through spiritual power that the state congealed and grew.
10.6.3: Moche
Later, other groups in Peru would build on religion and ceremony to help with state formation. The Moche began to conquer the North coast valleys in 200 BCE. By 250 CE, they had begun to construct the Huaca del Sol or temple of the sun and the Huaca de la Luna or temple of the moon at their capital. The Huaca del Sol seems to have been a royal residence, and the Huaca de la Luna was a place of worship. The Huaca del Sol contained over 143 million bricks, arranged into columns and marked with symbols perhaps of who made them. Each column probably represented a tax-paying Ayllu (kinship-based community), meaning that the Huaca or temple was a literal representation of how the empire was held up by its individual units.
Scholars are unsure of how much centralization existed at the upper echelons of Moche politics. Undoubtedly, there was a leadership class with several administrative levels. The first administrative level was that of the divine kings who are depicted in murals and ceramics. The second was of noble administrators. Below that were bureaucrats who organized the already extant clan system. Next came the long-standing clan leaders. The lowest level was composed of commoners, who lived in single-story adobe houses and mastered some craft like metallurgy or weaving. Others were highly skilled and perhaps worked exclusively for the rulers.
Outside of the capital were almost exclusively farmers who lived along the Moche’s extensive irrigation canals. (In the Chicama Valley, there is a 74 miles (120 km) long canal still in use today.) They used the llama, a domesticated mountain pack animal to journey to the coast and gather guano at the Chincha Islands for fertilizing their valley farms.
By 600 CE, the city of Moche covered an area of a square kilometer and probably had a population of 15,000. Each conquered valley outside of the capital had its own huaca, and each one was connected to Moche by relay runners who carried messages written in the form of lines and dots on Lima beans.
Perhaps the most notable Moche legacy was their art. Buildings, murals, and pottery reflected their great skill and the high level of societal stratification. The Huaca del Sol at Cerro Blanco contained millions of bricks and more than 100 types of geometric symbols. Moche murals consisted of a unique series of squares depicting both abstract and mythological concepts involving themes of creation, combat, sacrifice, and men-jaguars. As already mentioned, the use of sacrifice may have had a functional explanation.
10.6.4: Huari
The Huari were able to build a successful empire in nearby areas combining intimidation and militarism with diplomacy, trade, and ideology. Archaeologists have found textiles and ceramics far from the capital. Likewise, their architecture was highly influential throughout the region. The Huari Empire carved out a centralized state in a region where none had previously existed by coordinating local irrigation and labor systems. By 700 CE, Huari maintained a population of 25,000 and an over 434 miles (700 kilometers)-wide “zone of influence” connected by a road network that may have been the model for the Inca road system. In fact, it was ultimately Huari diplomacy and organization, rather than Moche violence in ritual killings, that provided a more useful precedent for the Inca.
10.6.5: Chimu
The Chimu Kingdom was more directly influenced by remnants of the Moche, occupying more or less the same geographic area. The Chimu capital of Chan Chan was established circa 1000 CE. Through a system of split inheritance, the Chimu forced the newly-ascended ruler to build his own material wealth, which led to the conquest of new territory and an increase in taxes. It also meant the construction of a new palace where each ruler would be buried along with hundreds of his attendants and llamas who were sacrificed to accompany him in the afterlife. Also, in the burial was a sample of his wealth in the form of textiles, wood carvings, pottery, or jewelry.
Earthquakes meant that the Chimu had to work hard to reclaim or make any use of Moche irrigation canals. They did manage to revive and extend the Moche system to eventually provide Chan Chan with diverse agricultural products from maize to cotton to peanuts. The Chimu also employed violence in their rise to power. However, their conquest by the Inca cut short any means for scholars to see if they intended to follow or rather eventually break from the Moche legacy.
10.6.6: South Coast peoples
The south coast of Peru developed somewhat distinctly because it is extremely arid. In certain areas along the coast, there has never been recorded rain. Surviving there meant accessing and controlling Andean runoff that sometimes went underground. As a result, the south coast’s population was much smaller, but in many ways was culturally richer.


2.1: Causality
Learning Objectives
- Examine the foundational assumptions of special relativity
The Arrow of Time
Our intuitive belief in cause-and-effect mechanisms is not sup- ported in any clear cut way by the laws of physics as currently understood. For example, we feel that the past affects the future but not the other way around, but this feeling doesn’t seem to translate into physical law. For example, Newton’s laws are invariant under time reversal, Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), as are Maxwell’s equations. (The weak nuclear force is the only part of the standard model that violates time-reversal symmetry, and even it is invariant under the CPT transformation.) There is an arrow of time provided by the second law of thermo- dynamics, and this arises ultimately from the fact that, for reasons unknown to us, the universe soon after the Big Bang was in a state of extremely low entropy. 1
Initial-value problems
So rather than depending on the arrow of time, we may be better off formulating a notion of causality based on existence and unique- ness of initial-value problems. In 1776, Laplace gave an influential early formulation of this idea in the context of Newtonian mechanics: “ Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the things which compose it . . . nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be laid out before its eyes. ” The reference to “ one instant ” is not compatible with special relativity, which has no frame-independent definition of simultaneity. We can, however, define initial conditions on some spacelike three-surface, i.e., a three-dimensional set of events that is smooth, has the topology of Euclidean space, and whose events are spacelike in relation to one another.
Unfortunately it is not obvious whether the classical laws of physics satisfy Laplace’s definition of causality. Two interesting and accessible papers that express a skeptical view on this issue are Norton, “Causation as Folk Science,” philsci-archive.pitt.edu/ 1214; and Echeverria et al., “Billiard balls in wormhole spacetimes with closed timelike curves: Classical theory,”. The Norton paper in particular has generated a large literature at the interface between physics and philosophy, and one can find most of the relevant material online using the keywords “Norton’s dome.”
Nor does general relativity offer much support to the Laplacian version of causality. For example, general relativity says that given generic initial conditions, gravitational collapse leads to the formation of singularities, points where the structure of spacetime breaks down and various measurable quantities become infinite. Singularities typically violate causality, since the laws of physics can’t describe them. In a famous image, John Earman wrote that if we have a certain type of singularity (called a naked singularity), “ all sorts of nasty things . . . emerge helter-skelter . . . , ” including “ TV sets showing Nixon’s ‘Checkers’ speech, green slime, Japanese horror movie monsters, etc. ”
A Modest Definition of Causality
Since there does not seem to be any reason to expect causality to hold in any grand sense, we will content ourselves here with a very modest and specialized definition, stated as a postulate, that works well enough for special relativity.
There exist events \(1\) and \(2\) such that the displacement vector \(\Delta r_{12}\) is timelike in all frames.
This is sufficient to rule out the “rotational” version of the Lorentz transformation shown in Figure 1.1.10. If P1 were violated, then we could never describe one event as causing another, since there would always be frames of reference in which the effect was observed as preceding the cause. 1
References
1 One can find a vast amount of nonsense written about this, such as claims that the second law is derivable without referen ce to any cosmological context. For a careful treatment, see Callender , “Thermodynamic Asymmetry in Time,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.


9.5: Examples of Effective Programs for Maternal and Infant Health
Postpartum home visitations by nurses can help to reduce incidences of child maltreatment, and improve postpartum psychosocial outcomes. Nurses in one study provided 1-3 home visits after the birth of a baby, to provide support and resources for parental and infant health, managing infant crying, and connecting parents with other community support they might need. The nurses also screened for potential problems like family violence or substance abuse, and provided referrals for further interventions if needed (Dodge et al., 2019).
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden death of an infant before the age of 1 - typically occurs in their sleep - and cannot otherwise be explained. Most of these deaths happen in cribs, and although specific causes are often unknown, several risk and protective factors have been identified. Eliminating smoking from the home, placing a baby to sleep on their backs, and removing any blankets, toys, or other objects from the crib have been shown to be effective protective measures against SIDS. In fact, since the beginning of the “Back to Sleep” campaign in 1994 (now called “Safe to Sleep), SIDS rates have dropped from 130.3 to 38.4 per 100,000 live births (between 1990-2020) (CDC, 2024e, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).


1.1: Prelude to Knowing Yourself as a Learner
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How do you feel about your learning abilities? Take this quick survey to figure it out, ranking questions on a scale of 1–4, 1 meaning “least like me” and 4 meaning “most like me.” These questions will help you determine how the chapter concepts relate to you right now. As you are introduced to new concepts and practices, it can be informative to reflect on how your understanding changes over time. We’ll revisit these questions at the end of the chapter to see whether your feelings have changed.
You can also take the Chapter 2 survey anonymously online.
STUDENT PROFILE
“When I came to college, I was a great STEM student. I knew the best ways to study for understanding the complexity of cellular mechanisms, but I had no idea how to study for classes where I would need to draw upon political theory or even how to memorize vocabulary words for language classes. Since I am now a humanities student studying Russian, I learned the hard way that you cannot study for every class the same way.
“For my first Russian vocabulary quiz, I studied almost 14 hours because I could not remember the words no matter how hard I tried. I was studying the Russian textbook the same way that I would study for a Chemistry or Biology class: to simply read the chapter or vocabulary list over and over again. I knew that I could not afford to be this time-inefficient for the entire semester, so I asked my professor for some tips on how to study for her class. Now, I start studying three days before each quiz by making flash cards the first day, studying the words from Russian to English the second day, and then studying the words from English to Russian by writing them down the third day. This new method is not one that works well for every class, but that’s the beauty of it! I am a better learner because I have found ways to use a more diverse range of studying tactics.”
— Gabby Kennedy , Baylor University
In this chapter you will learn about the art of learning itself, as well as how to employ strategies that enable you to learn more efficiently.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:


4.1: Introduction to Narrative Essay
Narrative Essay
Reflect for a moment on the last memorable story you heard, told, or read. What made the story remain with you? Was it a compelling character or participant in the action? An interesting set of circumstances? Was it told in an amusing or serious manner, and did it make you react emotionally?
Everyone loves a good story, and each day we seek out good stories in a variety of media: novels, short stories, newspapers, works of fine art, blogs, even notes and posts on social media pages.
Narration is the art of storytelling, and in this module, you will investigate the ways in which writers employ common narration strategies to engage readers from the beginning to the end of a significant event. You will also look critically at some examples of effective narration as you draft your narrative essay.
Module Outcomes
After successfully completing this module, you should be able to:
- Describe the purpose, basic components, characteristics, and structure of narrative writing
- Demonstrate writing techniques of a narrative essay


20.1: Introduction to the Respiratory System
Chapter Learning Objectives:
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
- List the structures of the respiratory system
- List the major functions of the respiratory system
- Outline the forces that allow for air movement into and out of the lungs
- Describe the development of the respiratory system in the embryo
Hold your breath. Really! See how long you can hold your breath as you continue reading…How long can you do it? Chances are you are feeling uncomfortable already.  This is because every cell in the body needs to run the oxidative stages of cellular respiration, the process by which energy is produced in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). For oxidative phosphorylation to occur, oxygen is used as a reactant and carbon dioxide is released as a waste product.
You may be surprised to learn that although oxygen is a critical need for cells, it is actually the accumulation of carbon dioxide that primarily drives your need to breathe. Carbon dioxide is exhaled and oxygen is inhaled through the respiratory system, which includes muscles to move air into and out of the lungs, passageways through which air moves, and microscopic gas exchange surfaces covered by capillaries. The circulatory system transports gases from the lungs to tissues throughout the body and vice versa. A variety of diseases can affect the respiratory system, such as asthma, emphysema, chronic obstruction pulmonary disorder (COPD), and lung cancer. All of these conditions affect the gas exchange process and result in labored breathing and other difficulties.
Contributors and Attributions
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OpenStax Anatomy & Physiology (CC BY 4.0). Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology


16: Synthetic Polymers
Synthetic polymer are man-made polymer that is not a biopolymer (e..g, proteins or complex carbohydrates). Synthetic polymers are mostly non-biodegradable and often synthesized from petroleum. The eight most common types of synthetic organic polymers are: Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), High-density polyethylene (HDPE), Polypropylene (PP), Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Polystyrene (PS), Nylon, nylon 6, nylon 6,6, Teflon (Polytetrafluoroethylene) and Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU).
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- 16.2: Chain-Growth Polymers
- Polymers resulting from additions to alkenes monomers are chain-growth polymers. In these processes each addition step results in a longer chain which ends in a reactive site. The mechanism of each addition step is the same, and each addition step adds another monomer to extend the chain by one repeating unit. The most common and thermodynamically favored chemical transformations of alkenes are addition reactions.
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- 16.3: Stereochemistry of Polymerization - Ziegler-Natta Catalysts
- An efficient and stereospecific catalytic polymerization procedure was developed by Karl Ziegler (Germany) and Giulio Natta (Italy) in the 1950's. Ziegler-Natta catalysts are prepared by reacting certain transition metal halides with organometallic reagents. The catalyst formed by reaction of triethylaluminum with titanium tetrachloride is commonly used. Ziegler-Natta catalysts allowed for the first time, the stereochemically controlled synthesis of polymers with virtually no branching.
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- 16.4: Copolymers
- Homopolymers are made with a single monomer and are made up of identical repeating units. Copolymers is made when two or more different monomers are polymerized together to create a polymer with variable repeating units. For example the monomers hexafluoropropene and vinylidene fluoride can be polymerized together to create the copolymer vitron which is used to create durable gaskets.
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- 16.5: Step-Growth Polymers
- Often, the reactions used to link these monomers include multiple nucleophilic acyl substitutions. Step-growth polymerizations usually use two different monomers, neither of which would undergo polymerization on its own. The two monomers are multifuntional and complementary to each other, such that each provides the other with a reactive partner. In this section, we will be focusing on monomers which are difunctional, meaning they contain two of the same reactive functional group.
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- 16.6: Olefin Metathesis Polymerization
- Alkene metathesis reactions are gaining wide popularity in synthesizing unsaturated olefinic compounds. Central to this catalysis is a metal carbene intermediate that reacts with olefins to give different olefinic compounds. When two different olefin substrates are used, the reaction is called the “cross metathesis” owing to the fact that the olefinic ends are exchanged. In a process called, olefin metathesis polymerization, unsaturated olefinic polymers can be created by a metathesis reaction.
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- 16.7: Polymer Structure and Physical Properties
- To account for the physical differences between the different types of polymers, the nature of the aggregate macromolecular structure, or morphology, of each substance must be considered. Because polymer molecules are so large, they generally pack together in a non-uniform fashion, with ordered or crystalline-like regions, called crystallites, mixed together with disordered or amorphous domains. In some cases the entire solid may be amorphous, composed entirely of tangled macromolecules.
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- 16.8: Summary
- The summary section reviews key concepts in synthetic polymers, highlighting their classifications, properties, and applications. It emphasizes the importance of understanding polymerization methods and the environmental impact of polymers, including the role of degradable materials. The chapter also underscores the significance of polymer science in various industries, including packaging and medicine.