Alaska’s Economy: The First World War, Frontier Fragility, and Jack London

Abstract

The two world wars had drama cally different effects on the Alaska economy. The military build-up during the Second World War created an economic boom and laid the founda on for the modern Alaska economy. The First World War contributed to an economic decline that followed the drama c expansion of mining ac vity and popula on in the first decade of the century. The boom and bust story is familiar to anyone interested in the economies of fron er regions. The fron er is assumed to be a fragile economy dependent on the economic fortunes of its resource industries. The economy expands and contracts with staples produc on. The support sector plays a passive role in economic growth and development of the fron er. Jack London suggested a different role for firms in the fron er’s support sector. He hypothesized that in a staples bust some por on of this support sector would remain. This remainder would change the fron er economic environment, providing services and reducing costs for the future. The suppor ng industries become an ac ve par cipant in a virtuous cycle of economic development on the fron er. The First World War provides a natural experiment to test Jack London’s hypothesis. This ar cle looks at the effects of the decline in Alaska’s staples industries, which started in the First World War, on the territory’s support sector. Did the suppor ng industries simply collapse like gold, copper, and fishing? Or did these industries seem resilient in the face of the staples decline? Census and Polk Directory data are used to test this hypothesis. This ar cle is part of a special collec on of papers originally presented at a conference on “The North and the First World War,” held May 2016 in Whitehorse, Yukon.