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University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Summer 2018 Endurance activism: transcontinental walking, the great peace march and the politics of movement culture Dain TePoel University of Iowa Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Copyright © 2018 Dain TePoel This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6510 Recommended Citation TePoel, Dain. "Endurance activism: transcontinental walking, the great peace march and the politics of movement culture." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2018. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.xvsbb29q Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons ENDURANCE ACTIVISM: TRANSCONTINENTAL WALKING, THE GREAT PEACE MARCH AND THE POLITICS OF MOVEMENT CULTURE by Dain TePoel A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in American Studies in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa August 2018 Thesis Supervisors: Associate Professor Thomas Oates Associate Professor Laura Rigal Copyright by DAIN TEPOEL 2018 All Rights Reserved Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL ____________________________ PH.D. THESIS _________________ This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of Dain TePoel has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in American Studies at the August 2018 graduation. Thesis Committee: ____________________________________________ Thomas Oates, Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________________ Laura Rigal, Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________________ Susan Birrell ____________________________________________ Meenakshi Gigi Durham ____________________________________________ Catriona Parratt To Meg, Lena, and June ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have done this project without the support of my committee. Thank you to Tom Oates, Laura Rigal, Susan Birrell, Gigi Durham, and Tina Parratt. As dissertation co-chairs Tom and Laura allowed me time and space to grow as a researcher and writer. Their effort and help throughout has greatly improved my work, and I am grateful for their patience and flexibility. Thanks to Gigi for her incisive, emboldening comments and suggestions. Throughout my time at Iowa, Susan has been an excellent professor, mentor, and advisor. I will always appreciate the ease in which our conversations flowed between work, writing, life, family, and the day-to-day world. She and Tina offered a warm welcome to the program after my two years at Ohio State. I would not have pursued a PhD without the introduction to the field, tremendous support, and excellent training that I received as a master’s student in Sport Humanities at Ohio State. Sarah Fields is a consummate professor and advisor who has not ceased in her role providing me with guidance and thoughtful advice, when asked. Susan Bandy’s dedication to the development of her students and their preparation as future colleagues is unparalleled. Mel Adelman pushed me as a new, nervous graduate student to dive right in and see myself as a scholar. You could never leave his office without a discussion of your five-year plan (professional and otherwise). I also made lifelong friends at OSU. Endless thanks and love to Andy Linden, Lindsay Parks Pieper, Melissa Wiser, Lauren Brown, and Kiernan Gordon. And even though they had graduated by the time I started, Ari de Wilde and Claire Williams welcomed me into the OSU fold as if we had been classmates and colleagues for years. The “flash bulb” moment for this project took place late in January 2015 as I listened to Miriam Kashia describe her experiences walking across the United States with the 2014 Great iii March for Climate Action. I am thankful to Miriam for educating me about her commitment, her work, and for introducing me to her network of activists. Though the Great March for Climate Action did not ultimately become part of this dissertation, I look forward to continuing my research and writing about their efforts and climate change activism in the future. I am indebted to each of my interview participants. They graciously shared their time, stories, and unique understandings of the complexities of taking part in a collective transcontinental walk for political action. I am grateful for the richness and texture they added to the study. I would like to extend a special thanks to Julia Gosztyla and the organizers of the Great Peace March’s 30th reunion for allowing me to join them during their valued time together. It was an amazing experience to be part of their community for a few days and get a little sense of what they call “march magic.” Shortly before the reunion, I spent a week immersed in the Great Peace March records at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection and received invaluable assistance from Wendy Chmielewski and Mary Beth Sigado. TC Mack – a best friend since our college days – and Laura Gray Mack, also a dear friend, were gracious hosts during my time at Swarthmore despite the fact that they were brand-new parents. Thanks to the North American Society for Sport History Dissertation Travel Grant for supporting this research, and to Kajsa Dalrymple and Lis Erickson for assistance with the IRB application process. I wish to thank friends and classmates at Iowa for their solidarity at various stages of the process. The “Machines in the Garden” trivia crew provided much needed moments of laughter and levity, though I was too infrequent a participant. I am fortunate to have shared the joys, frustrations, workshops, and coffee shop crawls of the dissertation journey with Diane Williams, Cathryn Lucas, Stacey Moultry, and Stephanie Grossnickle-Batterton. Thanks to Steph for being iv an excellent office mate during our final semesters at Iowa, which coincidentally led us both to Pennsylvania. Our conversations, in person or through text, were always reassuring. I am so thankful for friends Deeann Grove and Paul Cork, and Heather and Josh Helmich. The Helmich’s place was like a second home for our oldest daughter in the summer of 2017, and I am indebted to Heather for the many hours she watched Lena that allowed me to research and write. I am honored to call the Helmich’s friends. Deeann and Paul threw many an awesome party for the preschool and kindergarten set, and in between, somewhere along the way they became the kind of friends one needs to survive writing a dissertation. I owe Deeann special thanks for her encouragement on good days and difficult ones. She had an astonishing ability to provide whatever was needed when it was needed most – humor, empathy, motivation, or the bigger picture. I am also appreciative of my new colleagues in the Sport Studies Department at Lock Haven University for their camaraderie, understanding, and support as I completed the dissertation. My family has provided unwavering support throughout graduate school. The Williams family imparted steady support, goodwill, and confidence, for which I am grateful. My parents always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and never blinked when I embarked on a path that combined my passion for sports, and especially baseball, with my equally strong desire for learning, social change, and justice. They nurtured my interest in sport from a young age, and made tangible the connections between sport, family, community, culture, and society. They made tremendous sacrifices for my education, pushed me in moments of doubt, and had no small part in fostering my commitment to fairness and social justice. Thank you, mom and dad. My brother Kyle has been a constant source of inspiration and is someone I truly admire. Throughout my entire life he has, quite simply, been there for me in every sense of the phrase. v When we were little, I might protest when he’d had enough of backyard baseball and wanted to draw pictures of birds from his books. I don’t know when it happened, but I developed his affinity, appreciation, and concern for wildlife and the natural environment, though not a sliver of his knowledge, talent, or expertise. I do not have the words to thank him for all that he is and the ways he has supported, uplifted, and believed in me. I consider my sister-in-law Nicky a friend in many of the same ways. She went through medical school and residency while I toiled in graduate school, and I was revitalized by the times we were able to share our excitement, exhaustion, and a cold beer. I owe everything to Meg, Lena, and June. Lena was just shy of her third birthday when I started at Ohio State. By then, she had already been our little partner-in-crime during the two years that Meg was working on her master’s degree. I always joked that as long as I earned my PhD before Lena graduated from high school, we were good. She will never know how much she meant to me and inspired me throughout these years, as she’s grown from a little toddler filling my office walls with drawings to a wise-beyond-her-years 10-year-old helping me to see the finish line. June joined us midway through my second year at Ohio State. She too must have no idea the essential part she played in pushing me onward and filling me with resolve, her pictures joining Lena’s on the wall. Her hugs, squeezes, and smiles at daycare and Montessori drop-offs were frequently the boost that sent me on my way, too. To these two, my love and appreciation is boundless. Finally, the fault is utterly my own if Meg is unaware of how much her love, patience, and companionship mean to me. Words are entirely insufficient to express my appreciation for her, and how she steered our ship through stormy seas and calm.

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