We met with Representative Mary Mascher and visited the museum of natural history and Old Capitol in Iowa City this past Saturday.

The museum of natural history has several permanent exhibits, including the Iowa Hall, William and Eleanor Hageboeck Hall of Birds, Biosphere Discovery Hub, Laysan Island Cyclorama, and Mammal Hall. Displays in the mammal hall include a giant panda, antelope, whales, and musk oxen. Specimens from “aardvark to zebra” are represented, many of them collected by Iowa faculty and students.

The Iowa hall focuses on Iowa’s cultural and geologic history:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VykDv6mLGts

Exhibits include the Devonian Coral Reef, Ice Age Giant Ground Sloth, and Great Oasis. It was interesting to see the impact that early peoples had upon the state, and to brush up on my history. Agriculture in Iowa truly began 1100 years ago, during the Great Oasis Period.

Great Oasis villages were a setting for great progress. Crops improved; corn, beans and squash were harvested in surplus; food-storing methods were improved; permanent houses were built; and social organization became more sophisticated. This is what made “village-based life possible.”

I really enjoyed visiting Old Capital. It was my favorite part of Iowa City. I especially enjoyed looking at the early development of governance Iowa, and the impact that this governance and social structure has had upon the sociological norms of the state. Iowa was admitted to the United States as a free state, and the social values of entrepreneurship, land stewardship, and independence continue to permeate the social structure of the state, especially in rural farming communities like the ones that we are spending most of our time in.

I find these values, and the impacts that they’ve had upon society very interesting. Iowa farmers are very independent, but they are also incredibly reliant upon the federal government. The farm bill is incredibly important to farmers, who rely on the yearly payments it provides, as well as subsidized crop insurance. This balance can be delicate. Nobody wants to have the federal government telling them what to do on their own land, but it is necessary to be successful.