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Second Nature: Literature, Capital and the Built Environment, 1848-1938 SECOND NATURE: LITERATURE, CAPITAL AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, 1848-1938 by TRISTAN HARDY SIPLEY A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department ofEnglish and the Graduate School ofthe University ofOregon in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the degree of Doctor ofPhilosophy June 2010 11 University of Oregon Graduate School Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by: Tristan Sipley Title: "Second Nature: Literature, Capital and the Built Environment, 1848-1938" This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the Doctor ofPhilosophy degree in the Department ofEnglish by: William Rossi, Chairperson; English Henry Wonham, Member, English Enrique Lima, Member, English Louise Westling, Member, English John Foster, Outside Member, Sociology and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean ofthe Graduate School for the University of Oregon. June 14,2010 Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of Oregon Libraries. iii © 2010 Tristan Hardy Sipley ~--~- ------------------ IV An Abstract ofthe Dissertation of Tristan Hardy Sipley for the degree of Doctor ofPhilosophy in the Department ofEnglish to be taken June 2010 Title: SECOND NATURE: LITERATURE, CAPITAL AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT,1848-1938 Approved: Dr. William Rossi This dissertation examines transatlantic, and especially American, literary responses to urban and industrial change from the 1840s through the 1930s. It combines cultural materialist theory with environmental history in order to investigate the interrelationship ofliterature, economy, and biophysical systems. In lieu of a traditional ecocritical focus on wilderness preservation and the accompanying literary mode of nature writing, I bring attention to reforms ofthe "built environment" and to the related category ofsocial problem fiction, including narratives of documentary realism, urban naturalism, and politically-oriented utopianism. The novels and short stories of Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and Mike Gold offer an alternative history of environmental writing, one that foregrounds the interaction between nature and labor. Through a strategy of"literal reading" I connect the representation of particular environments in the work ofthese authors to the historical situation of actual v spaces, including the western Massachusetts forest ofMelville's "Tartarus ofMaids," the Virginia factory town ofDavis's Iron Mills, the Midwestern hinterland ofSinclair's The Jungle, and the New York City ghetto of Gold's Jews without Money. Even as these texts foreground the class basis of environmental hazard, they simultaneously display an ambivalence toward the physical world, wavering between pastoral celebrations and gothic vilifications ofnature, and condemning ecological destruction even as they naturalize the very socio-economic forces responsible for such calamity. Following Raymond Williams, I argue that these contradictory treatments of nature have a basis in the historical relationship between capitalist society and the material world. Fiction struggles to contain or resolve its implication in the very culture that destroys the land base it celebrates. Thus, the formal fissures and the anxious eruptions ofnature in fiction relate dialectically to the contradictory position ofthe ecosystem itselfwithin the regime of industrial capital. However, for all ofthis ambivalence, transatlantic social reform fiction ofthe late-nineteenth and early~twentieth century provides a model for an environmentally-oriented critical realist aesthetic, an aesthetic that retains suspicion toward representational transparency, and yet simultaneously asserts the didactic, ethical, and political functions of literature. VI CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Tristan Hardy Sipley PLACE OF BIRTH: Syracuse, NY DATE OF BIRTH: November 10,1980 GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University ofOregon, Eugene, Oregon Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York State University ofNew York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor ofPhilosophy, English, 2010, University ofOregon Master ofArts, English, 2005, Syracuse University Bachelor ofArts, English, 2003, State University ofNew York at Binghamton AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century American Literature Nineteenth Century British Literature Cultural and Critical Theory Environmental Humanities PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, University ofOregon 2006-2010 Graduate Writing Instructor, Syracuse University, 2003-2005 VB GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS: Association for the Study ofLiterature and Environment Conference Paper Award, 2007 and 2009 Oral Exam Passed with Distinction, University ofOregon, 2008 Jane Campbell Krohn Award, University ofOregon, 2007 Sarah Harkness Kirby Award, University ofOregon, 2005 and 2006 Jane Campbell Krohn Fellowship, University ofOregon, 2005 Masters Thesis Defense Passed with Distinction, Syracuse University, 2005 Alfred Bendixen Award for Undergraduate Honors Thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 2003 PUBLICATIONS: Sipley, Tristan. "Back to the Slaughterhouse." Reviews in Cultural Theory 1.1 (March 2010). http://www.reviewsinculture.com Sipley, Tristan. "Capitalism and the Environmental Dystopia." Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 17.3 (Sept 2006): 118-121 Vlll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor, Bill Rossi, for his extensive help in preparing this manuscript. His careful readings ofmy drafts and his expert editing advice pushed my prose to new levels. Furthermore, his warm and inviting nature always encouraged me to think deeply and share my ideas openly. I am grateful to my entire committee - Molly Westling, Harry Wonham, Enrique Lima, and John Foster - who all, in various ways, contributed to the development ofthis project, through seminars, written feedback, mentoring, and discussion. Learning is a social process, and this project would not have been possible without the influence from a broad community ofscholars: particularly Suzanne Clark, Liz Bohls, Betsy Wheeler, and Deborah Shapple at Oregon; Amy Lang at Syracuse; and Leslie Heywood at Binghamton. I would also like to acknowledge my graduate student colleagues in the University ofOregon's theory reading group and environmental literature reading group. Our passionate debates were central to the formation ofthese arguments. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my immediate and extended families, and most ofall to my fiancee and best friend, Gina Liotta. In addition to being a hard-working comrade in teaching and writing, she is also the kindest and most dedicated person I know. For all ofthe support she gave, she deserves to be recognized as a co-author ofthis dissertation. IX For my Mother, an English Teacher, And my Father, a Union Ironworker and "Friend ofForest Park" x TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF ECOCRITICISM 1 II. FROM MANCHESTER TO MASSACHUSETTS: THE TRANSATLANTIC INDUSTRIAL FICTIONS OF DICKENS AND MELVILLE 31 III. THE NATURALIST-UTOPIAN DIALECTIC: URBAN FICTION IN THE GILDED AGE AND PROGRESSIVE ERA......................................................... 81 IV. REBECCA HARDING DAVIS'S ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSE 107 V. THE ECOLOGICAL CONTRADICTIONS OF UPTON SINCLAIR 138 VI. RETHINKING THE GARDEN: CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S URBAN POLITICAL ECOLOGy 175 VII. PROLETARIAN FICTION AND THE NATURALIST-UTOPIAN AUFHEBUNG 197 VIII. AFTERWORD: ECOCRITICISM AND THE NEW CRITICAL REALISM ... 225 BIBLIOGRAPHY 232 1 CHAPTER I THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF ECOCRITICISM Because literary criticism and literature are produced within an identical set ofhistorical limitations...the specific way in which a critical approach denies or represses History is very often the best guide to the way the literary work it analyzes denies or represses History. William Dowling Ecology is the crucial example of ideological struggle today. Slavoj Zizek The first decade ofthe twenty-first century may be remembered as the era when environmentalism went mainstream. Amidst a backdrop ofrecord temperatures, erratic weather patterns, and a steady increase in social and ecological disasters, the environmental movement's recognition ofhuman impact on the biosphere has shifted from a controversial fringe complaint to a general consensus. 1 This emerging awareness has the potential to be radically transformative. Whereas earlier conservation movements focused on the protection ofspecific local ecosystems, the specter ofglobal climate change calls into question the overall patterns ofproduction and consumption that underlie our socio-economic system. The expansive and totalizing nature of contemporary capitalist accumulation demands a fundamental questioning ofthe IThe widespread acceptance ofglobal wanning was signaled, among other cultural events, by the popularity ofAl Gore's 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth, which became the fourth highest-grossing documentary in film history, won an Academy Award, and helped Gore receive a Nobel Peace Prize. 2 system's contradictions, thus creating the conditions for organized, international response. But this mainstream recognition is a double-edged sword. For just as environmentalism emerges as a point ofradical resistance, it is reintegrated into the dominant cultural logic. From hybrid cars to solar panels, organic groceries to energy­ saving appliances, "earth-friendly" has become the
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