On Doing Environmental History of the American West

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

On Doing Environmental History of the American West

The Wolfe Institute The Department of History, in collaboration with the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, presents a lunchtime discussion with Sara Dant and Dan Flores On Doing Environmental History of the American West Sara Dant is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Weber State University in Utah. Her newest book is Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley, 2017). She is the author of several prize- winning articles on western environmental politics and a precedent-setting Expert Witness Report and Testimony on Stream Navigability upheld by the Utah Supreme Court (2017). She is also co-editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of American National Parks (Routledge, 2004). Dan Flores, A.B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of Western History at the University of Montana-Missoula, currently lives and writes in the Galisteo Valley outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has published ten books, among them the best-selling Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History (New York: Basic/Perseus, 2016), American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016), Caprock Canyonlands: Journeys into the Heart of the Southern Plains, 20th Anniversary Edition (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010), and The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2003). Thursday, October 3, 2019 12:30 to 2 p.m. History Seminar Room, 1115 Boylan Hall Brooklyn College Campus Free pizza available Contact or Connect with us: P: 718.951.5847 | E: [email protected] | T: @HistoryDept_BC | W: brooklyn.cuny.edu/wolfe.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

The Pretty Horses the Horse Trade and the Early American West, 1775–1825 by Dan Flores
Bringing Home All the Pretty Horses The Horse Trade and the Early American West, 1775–1825 by Dan Flores n the summer of 1834, just two years after having visited and painted the tribes of the Missouri River and northern plains country, western artist IGeorge Catlin got his first opportunity to observe and paint that counterpoint world, hundreds of miles to the south, on the plains of what is now western Oklahoma. Accompanying an American military expedition that sought to treat with peoples like the Comanches and the Kiowas, Catlin had a singular chance to see firsthand the similarities and differences between these two regions of the early-nineteenth-century American West. From the 1780s to the 1820s, as corporate investment gave rise to the fur trade in the northern West, the wild horse trade on the southern plains generated an economy that dominated the Southwest. In 184, artist George Catlin visited the plains that are now part of western Oklahoma and recorded his observations of the Comanches and other horse-trading tribes, including their “usual mode of taking the wild horses . by throwing the lasso, whilst pursuing them at full speed.” Detail, George Catlin, North American Indians, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1926), 2:plate 161, quote p. 65 On the Missouri, Catlin had traveled and of 1834,“is stocked, not only with buffaloes, but with lived with fur traders from one of the big companies numerous bands of wild horses, many of which we engaged in competition for wealth skinned from the saw every day.” He went on, with obvious admira- backs of beavers, river otters, muskrats, and bison.
[Show full text]
Promise Beheld and the Limits of Place
Promise Beheld and the Limits of Place A Historic Resource Study of Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks and the Surrounding Areas By Hal K. Rothman Daniel Holder, Research Associate National Park Service, Southwest Regional Office Series Number Acknowledgments This book would not be possible without the full cooperation of the men and women working for the National Park Service, starting with the superintendents of the two parks, Frank Deckert at Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Larry Henderson at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. One of the true joys of writing about the park system is meeting the professionals who interpret, protect and preserve the nation’s treasures. Just as important are the librarians, archivists and researchers who assisted us at libraries in several states. There are too many to mention individuals, so all we can say is thank you to all those people who guided us through the catalogs, pulled books and documents for us, and filed them back away after we left. One individual who deserves special mention is Jed Howard of Carlsbad, who provided local insight into the area’s national parks. Through his position with the Southeastern New Mexico Historical Society, he supplied many of the photographs in this book. We sincerely appreciate all of his help. And finally, this book is the product of many sacrifices on the part of our families. This book is dedicated to LauraLee and Lucille, who gave us the time to write it, and Talia, Brent, and Megan, who provide the reasons for writing. Hal Rothman Dan Holder September 1998 i Executive Summary Located on the great Permian Uplift, the Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns national parks area is rich in prehistory and history.
[Show full text]
Everything Will Be Changed: the Horse and the Comanche Empire
Everything Will Be Changed: The Horse and the Comanche Empire Stephen Kwas Senior Division Historical Paper Word Count: 2474 “Remember this: if you have horses everything will be changed for you forever.”1 - Attributed to Maheo, Creator God of the Cheyenne Bones of over 1,000 horses lay bleaching under a hot Texas sun, months-old remnants from the last stand of one of the greatest equestrian powers in history: the Comanche. Spanish horses allowed for the Comanche and other tribes of the Great Plains, who had lacked horses for over 15,000 years, to transform their societies. Upon its arrival, the Comanche immediately capitalized on the horse and used it to break the barrier of human physiology—the limits of human endurance which significantly restricted hunting, raiding, and trading—and created a vast trade empire. Many have romanticized this history by arguing that the horse was beneficial to all Comanches.2 This paper, however, argues that the horse brought wealth and power to some Comanches, but also brought slave markets, marginalization of women, constant warfare, and social stratification to their society. The tragic irony was that the horse, the very technology that allowed them to conquer their environment, eventually destroyed the ecological balance of the Plains and made them vulnerable to American invasions. Pedestrianism: Life before the Horse Before European contact, Plains Indians relied on farming as much as hunting and often oscillated between the two.3 Although the bison served as their main source of food, Plains 1 Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin, Plains Indian Mythology (New York, NY: Meridian, 1975), 96.
[Show full text]
Mcvaugh on Flores, 'Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest'
H-Environment McVaugh on Flores, 'Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest' Review published on Monday, October 1, 2001 Dan Flores. Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. xv + 312 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8263-2011-7. Reviewed by Fred McVaugh (National Park Service) Published on H-Environment (October, 2001) Nature and History Relevant To Our Lives Nature and History Relevant To Our Lives Like Southwestern sunsets' peaches and crimsons, this is a book to be admired. Horizontal Yellow is a hard won, candid meditation on the Near Southwest's natural world, the author's place and experiences in it and people's fateful impact on it. Dan Flores' knowledge is enormous, embracing not only today's physical actuality but also the Horizontal Yellow's ecology and human occupation through time and how and why both have changed. What is more,Horizontal Yellow demonstrates effectively, and with a compassion and conviction often absent in scholarly writing, that history is relevant to our daily lives. As a result, perhaps unwittingly, Flores carries "frontier anxiety"[1] to the twenty-first century's doorstep. At the outset, Flores warned that Horizontal Yellow is not a book of environmental history. It is a book about history and nature and humankind's impact on nature in the Near Southwest, the largely horizontal region of yellowed grass spanning from the Rocky Mountains' eastern range to Louisiana's bayou country and southern Kansas to the Gulf Coast, that is, Flores claims, delineated by "water", "history" and "sensory impression" (p.
[Show full text]
The Genizaros in Colonial New Mexico
University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2008 Into the Den of Evils: The Genizaros in Colonial New Mexico Doris Swann Avery The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Avery, Doris Swann, "Into the Den of Evils: The Genizaros in Colonial New Mexico" (2008). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 592. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/592 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTO THE DEN OF EVILS: THE GENíZAROS IN COLONIAL NEW MEXICO By DORIS SWANN AVERY Bachelor of Arts, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1993 Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History The University of Montana Missoula, MT May 2008 Approved by: Dr. David A. Strobel, Dean Graduate School Dr. Dan L. Flores, Committee Chair History Dr. Jody Pavilack History Dr. David R.M. Beck Native American Studies Avery, Doris, M.A., Spring 2008 History INTO THE DEN OF EVILS: THE GENíZAROS IN COLONIAL NEW MEXICO Chairperson: Dr. Dan L. Flores As a result of the Indian slave trade in the American Southwest, a group of detribalized Indians emerged in New Mexico during the Spanish colonial period.
[Show full text]
Land Use and Change in the Bitterroot Valley, Pre-History to 1930" (1999)
University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1999 Montana Eden| Land use and change in the Bitterroot Valley, pre- history to 1930 Edward Duke Richey The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Richey, Edward Duke, "Montana Eden| Land use and change in the Bitterroot Valley, pre-history to 1930" (1999). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 3006. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/3006 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY The University of IVIONTANA. Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. ** Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature ** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature Date Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. Montana Eden Land Use and Change in the Bitterroot Valley Prehistory to 1930 By E. Duke Richey B.A. The University of the South, 1990 M.S. University of Montana, 1998 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Montana 1999 Approved by airperson,.
[Show full text]
A Guide to the Dan Flores Papers
A Guide to the Dan Flores Papers 1989 - 1991 Collection 044 Descriptive Summary Creator: Flores, Dan Title: The Dan Flores Papers Dates: 1989 – 1991 Identification: Collection 044 Extent: 3 folders (.10 linear feet) Language: English Repository: Southwestern Writers Collection, Special Collections, Alkek Library, Texas State University-San Marcos Biographical Sketch Dan Flores was born in 1948 in Vivian, Louisiana, and earned his PhD in History from Texas A & M University in 1978. He is a scholar of Environmental History of the American West. Flores taught in the History Department at Texas Tech University from 1978-1992, and since 1992 at the University of Montana at Missoula. Scope and Content Note This collection includes one typescript of a speech, and copies of two articles published by the author. It has been arranged into the following series: 1. Speech, and 2. Published Articles. Dates range from 1989-1991.The speech, entitled “Texans and the Land”, was given by Flores at the Texas State Historical Association meeting in 1991.The two articles include “The Plains and the Painters,” a page proof as it was to appear in the Journal of American Culture, Summer 1991, vol. 14, no.2. The second article, “The Ecology of the Red River in 1806,” is a reprint originally published in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, and is signed by the author. This article won the Carroll Award from the Texas State Historical Association and the Billington Prize from the Western Historical Association. A Guide to the Dan Flores Papers (Collection 044) 2 Administrative Information Access Restrictions Open for research. Preferred Citation The Dan Flores Papers, Southwestern Writers Collection, Texas State University-San Marcos Acquisition Information Donated by Dan Flores, 1991.
[Show full text]
“The Paradise of America”: Visions of Land Use on the Southwestern Frontier
“The Paradise of America”: Visions of Land Use on the Southwestern Frontier ROBERT BAUER The frontier of the American Southwest was a wonderfully diverse and tumultuous place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- turies. In those years, the southwestern frontier—a swath running west from what is now Georgia and Alabama into Texas—was home to a wide variety of people pursuing livelihoods based on the tremendous natural resources of the Gulf Coast region. American, French, and Spanish planters were busy transforming the indigenous landscape by growing cotton, rice, tobacco, and indigo, alongside the occasional farmer engaged in growing food crops such as corn. Under these planters worked their African slaves, whether second or third genera- tion slaves of local ancestry or imported from the West African coast, the slave markets of New Orleans, Richmond, and Charleston, or the sugar islands of the Caribbean. Hovering on the perimeter of this soci- ety, Indian nations—such as the Creek and Choctaw in the east and the Caddo and Comanche in the west—offered the prospect of profitable commerce to the merchants of frontier towns such as Natchez, Mobile, and Natchitoches. Other tribes, the Osage especially, posed an element of danger to those traders intrepid enough to brave both Indian attack and the Spanish provincial authorities while seeking to tap into the mustang trade of the Texas plains. Men from Ohio, Kentucky, and Ten- Robert Bauer received a B.A. from Washington State University in 1998 and an M.A. from the University of Montana in 2004. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas.
[Show full text]
Dan-Flores New-Mexic
' sHop, HIKE, PLAY, SKI, EAT, SlP, STARG AZ,EI 11 COMING HOME! _ _b,o* r$iiir:;' ,i.r'.. \, j:.l t| _';;l il't.*.,1 r ir,. 't ''':,f'l;i n! u.'*'ieI i #I1l,,6q*: 'i,W"f&, JANUARY2OlS I $4.95USA NMMAGAZINE.COM BY DAN FLORES PHOTOS BY MIIVESH BACRAT{IA I .? :,";- " r.li"' ...,.'itr.-i:.S#,... ' . ?1r!,. .si ' :''A *: i- ;_re*,*b!:. i5, l.'sl g11, I lL, :' t ,* €' :nrj:.r::ir{{::i,;:lirir. )r- rl.t:.;;1i5i1{liili::il],.:l.rt:::'::';:,., :,i:i:.j:ii!:t1:f !r.!r:i:: NLESS WILE E. COYOTE'S unre- quited obsession with the Road Runner strikes you as a psychologically healthy pursuit, this is not a normal story. It's slightly embarrassing, in fact, in a way that single-minded passions can be, particularly ones engaged in over decades. Admit to friends at age 50 that you still carry a torch for the girl you took to the high school prom and you'll get sympathetic chuckles' Then tell them that you've abandoned relationship after relationship thanks to brief memories of that girl and see how they react' My pursuit ofgetting to live in New Mexico-and, I should be specific, in Santa Fe- has that same whiffof obsessive-compulsive behavior' But being a little psychologically off-center finally got me to what I like to call my Best Place, one I'd been chasing for 40 years. I am pretty certain that I didn't target the state as some dream destination as a child.
[Show full text]
Promise Beheld and the Limits of Place: a Historic Resource Study Of
Carlsbad Caverns National Park (U.S. National Park Service) Page 10f3 National Park S@rvic@ U.S. D@partm@nt of the Int@rior Quicklinks: Main Elevator System Renovation Directions Operating honrs & seasons Sept 13 ' 1O-May'll- only smaller elevators to carry Fces & Reservations visitors in & out of cave. Visitors, allow more time to Can' Tours visit; anticipate wait for elevator, mainly on busy days, Broc hurcs & Publications i.e. holidays & spring break Speci al l 'ses/Prrmits Night SI,y Prog"ams Welcome to Carlsbad Cavel'l1s National ParI\:! Rocky slopes and canyons; cactus, grass, thorny shrubs, and the occasional tree, who could guess at the hidden treasures deep underground? Beneath this rugged land are more than 117 known caves - all formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone. Cave Tours All visitors to the park should tour the main section of the cave, the Big Room self-guided tour. The 8.2-acre Big Room is partially wheelchair accessible. The Natural Entrance self-guided tour is also very impressive, but it is also more difficult due to the steepness of the trai I. Guided tours of varying difficulties are also available-from the self-guided areas of the Big Room to crawling through narrow passageways in the Hall ofthe White Giant or in Spider Cave. To reserve tickets for a guided tour, call our reservation service at 1.877.444.6777. more ... http://www.nps.gov/cave 10/13/2010 Promise Beheld and the Limits of Place - Carlsbad Caverns - Table of Contents Page 1 of2 Promise Beheld and the Limits of Place A Historic Resource Study of Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains Promise Beheld and the Limits of Place National Parks and the Surrounding Areas by Hal K.
[Show full text]
Interview with Dan Flores Author of the Natural West and American Serengeti
Interview with Dan Flores Author of The Natural West and American Serengeti By Clay S. Jenkinson WPO: Why did you write American Serengeti? DF: I think much of it had to do with the time I lived on the Great Plains back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. I was fascinated with that landscape. I was seeing it a full century after all the big animals had disappeared, and it struck me as kind of a blank slate really, a tabula rasa, in a number of ways. Certainly there were farms and ranches and highways and towns, but I knew from having read its history that this was a landscape that for much of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries had struck people around the world as one of the great spectacles of the globe, primarily because of its wildlife. I was excited about the place, but I was also trying to get some handle on what the long-term history of the Great Plains had been, why it had gone in the particular arc it had gone. Over time I worked on one animal after another. I started by writing about bison and trying to figure out what really happened to bison in the nineteenth century rather than just accepting the word of other writers who had addressed the problem. I tried to do some original research, proceeding through one animal after another. Because I owned horses, I wrote about wild horses, and I wrote about pronghorns and wolves and coyotes. Ultimately I realized that what I was doing was trying to answer in my own mind what had happened to all these animals, and what had happened to this world that had ceased to exist long before I ever came along.
[Show full text]
Western Literature Association Conference 2019 Not Cloudy All
Western Literature Association Conference 2019 Estes Park, Colorado • September 18-21 Not Cloudy All Day Climates of Change in the American West Graphic courtesy of Kaycie Timm WELCOME TO ESTES PARK! Look around you at this glorious location! We are in the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies, a magnificent landscape occupied, visited, and loved by Arapaho and Ute (as well as other) tribes, US expansionists, British nobility, French fur trappers, American explorers and adventurers, and millions of visitors from all over the world. At the YMCA, between Rocky Mountain National Park and the Arapaho National Forest, we are sur- rounded by many acres of public lands. We meet at a moment which feels, to us at least, like a time when we must talk about change—climate change and everything it will alter about our SueEllen Campbell material lives, culture shift, social transformation—and when we must Colorado State University make our “talk” more accessible to a broad, public audience. These con- victions have shaped our conference themes and design, not to mention our choice of plenary speakers and our Distinguished Achievement Award Winner. Our featured speakers are Aaron Abeyta, Paolo Bacigalupi, Brian Calvert, Scott Denning, Dan Flores, Kathleen Dean Moore, and Laura Pritchett. In addition to addressing climate change and cultural transformation in the West, these speakers exemplify public engagement, social and environ- mental activism, and a commitment to scholarly rigor and creative vigor in Alex Hunt West Texas A&M University their work. A partnership with the Estes Valley Library has led us to make Laura Pritchett’s and Kathleen Dean Moore’s events open to the general public.
[Show full text]