American Environmental History

Louis S. Warren is the W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at the University of California, Davis. He is a two-time winner of the Caughey Western History Association Prize, a Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Albert Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association and the Bancroft Prize in American History.

• Series Editor’s PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: What is Environmental History?1 The Nature of Indian America Before ColumbusArticle: William M. Denevan, “The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492” (Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82(3) 1992:  369-385)DocumentsRichard Nelson, “The Watchful World” (from Richard Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest (University of Chicago, 1983): 14 – 32.From Gilbert Wilson, Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987)Images of Florida Indians planting and making an offering of a stag to the sun (Images and text extracts from Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, The Work of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Vols. I and II).U.S. Geological Survey, map of Bitterroot Forest Reserve showing burned areas, 1890.2 The Other Invaders: Deadly Diseases and Extraordinary AnimalsArticle: Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics” (excerpted from Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900 – 1900 (Cambridge, 1987))DocumentsFrank Givens, “Saynday and Smallpox: The White Man’s Gift”From Thomas James, Three Years among the Indians and MexicansJohn C. Ewers, “Horse Breeding”George Catlin, “Wild Horses at Play”3 Colonial Natures: Marketing the CountrysideArticle: William Cronon, “A World of Fields and Fences” excerpt from Changes in the Land:  Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England (Hill & Wang, 1983)DocumentsRobert Cushman, “Reasons and Considerations Touching the Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the Parts of America” (1622)Lion Gardener, “Livestock and War in Colonial New England”Spanish priests Joseph Murguia and Thomas de la Pena explain Indian frustration with settler livestock in colonial California4 Slavery and the South Through Environmental HistoryArticle: Mart Stewart, “Towards an Environmental History of the U.S. South”Documentsnewspaper advertisements for African slaves “from ‘The Rice Coast’ of West Africa, with knowledge of rice growing”Wilderness songs of enslaved people, William Francis Allen, Slave Songs of the United States (1867)Frederick Law Olmsted, “The Rice District”5 Frontier Expansion and WasteArticle: Alan Taylor, “Wasty Ways”: Stories of American Settlement” (from Environmental History 3(3) July 1998: 291 – 309 (excerpted)).DocumentsJames Fenimore Cooper on “The Wasty Ways of Pioneers”John J. Audubon and the Wonder of the Passenger Pigeon, 1830sReporting on Passenger Pigeons (1850)Frederick J. Haskin, “One Bird Survives Millions” (1913)Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in CaliforniaThomas Cole, Excerpt from “Essay on American Scenery” (1836)6 Environmental Reform In City and Factory Article: Charles E. Rosenberg, From The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (“Introduction,” and “The Epidemic,” from The Cholera Years (1962, rev. ed. 1987), 1-7, 13 – 39, excerpted)Documents“The Metropolitan Board of Health Suppresses Nuisances” (1866)“Underground Life—Health Officers Clean Out a Dive” (1873)San Francisco fire, 1850sLos Angeles crowd with water flowing into aqueductDynamited LA aqueduct, 1927.Alice Hamilton describes the industrial workplace of the early 1900s (1943)7 Emerging Markets and Vanishing Animals Article: Dan Flores, “Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy Redux: Another Look at the Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850” (from Dan Flores, The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (University of Oklahoma, 2001)).DocumentsBilly Dixon, “Memories of buffalo hunting” (1870s)Harper’s Weekly, “Curing Hides and Bones” (1874)Drake Hotel, Thanksgiving Menu, 1886Baleen Demand and the Destruction of Whales (1907)Advertisement for Thomson’s Glove-Fitting Corset (1874)“Destruction of Birds for Millinery Purposes,” (1886)“Cruelties of Fashion-Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds” (1883)8 The Many Uses of Progressive ConservationArticle: Benjamin Heber Johnson, “Conservation, Subsistence, and Class at the Birth of Superior National Forest” (Environmental History 4(1) January 1999, 80 – 99).DocumentsGifford Pinchot, “The Meaning of Conservation”“Mr. A. A. Anderson, Special Supervisor of the Yellowstone and Teton Timber Reserves, Talks Interestingly of the Summer’s Work”Women Activists Take on Bird Hat Fashion --Celia Thaxter, “Woman’s Heartlessness” (1887)Charles Askins Describes Game and Hunting Conditions in the SouthBen Senowin testifies about being apprehended for game law violations9 National Parks and the Trouble With WildernessArticle: William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (from William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground (Norton, 1995). DocumentsJohn Muir on Saving Hetch HetchyPeter Oscar Little Chief requests permission to hunt in Glacier ParkNational Parks Act, 1916; Wilderness Act, 196410 Conservation and the New DealArticle: Neil Maher, “A New Deal Body Politic: Landscape, Labor, and the Civilian Conservation Corps,” Environmental History, 7, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 435-461 (excerpt)DocumentsAnn Marie Low, Farmer’s Daughter, Describes the New Deal Excerpt from Russell Moore, Roosevelt Riddles (1936)Photo Gallery--Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein Capture the Dust BowlEli Gorman and Deneh Bitsilly Remember New Deal Livestock Reduction in Navajo Country (1974)11 Something In the Wind: Radiation, Pesticides, and Air Pollution Article: Robert Gottlieb, “Reconstructing Environmentalism: Complex Movements, Diverse Roots” (Environmental History 17(4) Winter, 1993: 1-19 (excerpted).Documents“Fallout: The Silent Killer” (1959)From Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)Monsanto Corporation, excerpt from “The Desolate Year” (1962)The Hugh Moore Fund, “The Population Bomb” (1954)The Air Pollution Control Act (1955)The Clean Air Act, with amendments (2001)United Farm Workers, “Pesticides:  The Poisons We Eat” (1969)12 Environmental Protection and the Environmental MovementArticle: J. Brooks Flippen, “Richard Nixon and the Triumph of Environmentalism” (excerpted from Flippen, Nixon and the Environment (New Mexico, 2000):  1- 16, 46-49, 83-87, 98, 233-6, 243-4, 250, 254-5).DocumentsNational Environmental Policy Act (1969)The Endangered Species Act (1973)From Daniel Yankelovich, “The New Naturalism” (1972)Gaylord Nelson Newsletter, “Earth Day” (1970)Black Environmentalists See “Another Side of Pollution” (1970)From Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (1969)13 Environmental Racism and Environmental JusticeArticle: Eileen Maura McGurty, “From NIMBY to Civil Rights: The Origins of the Environmental Justice Movement” (excerpted from Environmental History 2(3) July, 1997: 301-323.DocumentsLois Gibbs on toxic waste and environmental justice(1992)From United Church of Christ, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States (1987)The Letter that Shook a Movement (1993)Flint Water Advisory Task Force, “Final Report” (Excerpt) (2016)14 Global Consumers and Global EnvironmentsArticle: Matt Klingle, “Spaces of Consumption in Environmental History,” History and Theory, 42(4) Dec. 2003, 94 – 110 (excerpt)DocumentsA Botanist’s Report on Bananas in Honduras (1931)The Impact of Coffee Farming on Indigenous Peoples (2005)State of Denial—California’s Appetite for World Resources (2003)15 Back-Lash Against the Environmental MovementArticle: James Morton Turner, “The Specter of Environmentalism: Wilderness, Environmental Politics, and the Evolution of the New Right,” Journal of American History 96 (1) June, 2009: 123 - 149DocumentsMap of U.S. Federal Lands (2020)Tim Peckinpaugh, “Special Report-The Specter of Environmentalism: The Threat of Environmental Groups” (1982)  Joe Lane (National Cattlemen’s Association) and Larry Echohawk (Shoshone and Bannock Tribes of Idaho), testify about the Sagebrush Rebellion (1980)Carl Pope, “The Politics of Plunder”S. Fred Singer, “The Costs of Environmental Overregulation”Mark Douglas Whitaker, “’Jobs vs. Environment’ Myth”16 Shifting Scale: Climate Change and Global Peril  Article: Mike Hulme, “Reducing the Future to Climate:  A Story of Climate Determinism and Reductionism” (excerpt, from Osiris 2011 26:245-266)DocumentsBen J. Wattenberg, “The Population Explosion is Over” (1996)“World Population is Expected to Nearly Stop Growing by the End of the Century”From United Nations, “World Population Prospects” (2019)Graph of Economic Growth and Air Emission Trends, 1970 – 2018Graph of Atmospheric CO2 Concentration, 1958-2020Atmospheric CO2 concentrations, 800,000 BP-presentThe Acid Rain Experience, 1990-2002Atmospheric CFC Concentration, 1977-2019Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, 2020 (NASA)Index