Expanding networks of trade bring goods from every corner of the world to our homes in Omaha. Our consumer decisions transform economic and environmental relationships around the world.
Silver before gold
Globalization began when the Spanish Empire created the first global currency. The Spanish used gold and silver mined in Bolivia to trade for good in China. These silver coins connected American mines, to tea fields in China, to the markets of Europe.
You can have it all
With global trade, foreign landscapes opened to American use. By the 19th century, commercial networks allowed families in Omaha to consume tropical goods like coffee. Today, multinational corporations like ConAgra dominate food production. They use resources from every type of environment and ship products globally.
Living in a manufactured world
Televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines are in almost every home
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The Reales coins in his collection, minted from Spanish “New World” silver represent the first worldwide currency. Their production globalized 16th century economies by providing a universal system of value.
Creation of global currency allowed exponential business growth that shifted the human-nature relationship. The value of nature became what it could provide for the economy. As a result, few ecosystems today remain untouched by man from mining, farming or logging.
In 1916, Omaha businessmen William Paxton and Benjamin Gallagher started gas-roasting coffee. Their Butter-Nut factory stood across the parking deck of the current Durham Museum. While being a local hit, the coffee beans grew thousands of miles away.
Butter-Nut operated plantations in 18 different tropical countries farming sun or shade-grown coffee. Butter-Nut preferred planting in full-sun. This process required cutting down large areas of forest causing habitat