The history of the environmental movement in the United States is characterized by ambivalence. Americans were the first to create (now famous) national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, yet their functioning depended upon the exclusion of Native Americans. The conservationists of the late nineteenth century laid the groundwork for the modern environmental movement, but it was borne mostly out of economic necessities. In the 1960s, a more diverse movement began to form, but it was predominantly white.
This class will trace the history of the American environmental movement by focusing on key figures such as John Muir and Rachel Carson, by highlighting the impact of disasters such as the infamous “burning river” in Cleveland, the toxic waste crisis in Love Canal, and the Santa Barbara oil spill, and by looking at key moments in the history of this movement like the first Earth Day in April 1970 that brought approx. 20 million Americans to the streets.
Literature:
Ted Steinberg, Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History. Oxford, New York, 2002; Finis Dunaway, Natural Visions: The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2005; Keith Makoto Woodhouse, The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018; Paul S. Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement, University of Washington Press, 2002; Michael Lewis (ed.), American Wilderness: A New History. New York: Oxford University Press 2007.
- Trainer/in: Uwe Lübken