DAM CRAZY WITH WILD CONSEQUENCES: ARTIFICIAL LAKES AND NATURAL RIVERS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1845-1990 by CHRISTOPHER JOHN MANGANIELLO (Under the Direction of Paul S. Sutter) ABSTRACT This dissertation is about water and power in the American South between 1890 and 1990. Corporate monopolies, state agents, and citizens clashed over the answer to a basic question: Who was best equipped to manage natural resources equitably and stimulate economic growth? Corporate and state representatives understood the direct relationships between rivers, energy production, and political economy. Between 1890 and 1930, New South corporate capitalists and transnational engineers laid claim to water resources to fuel industrial and urban development. Regional planners created the Tennessee Valley Authority to counterbalance commercial monopolies. After 1945, Congress rejected New Deal liberalism and turned the Army Corps of Engineers into the Sunbelt’s go-to water management agency. Powerful institutions built levees, dams, and reservoirs throughout these periods to solve old “water problems,” generate energy, and consolidate power. In doing so, these organizations took part in an ongoing social, racial, and ecological discourse about the cultural benefits and natural functions of these new hybrid environments. The environmental challenges were substantial. Scholars have documented the region’s historic water problems associated with flooding, navigation, and erosion. The industrial and agricultural South, however, has been equally influenced by a less well known water problem: water scarcity. Corporate and state responses to multiple, dramatic droughts shaped the southeast’s watersheds and modernization. There are no natural lakes in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge South, yet major and modest reservoirs dot the land from Virginia to Alabama. Investigating the corporate and state institutions responsible for building the region’s extensive reservoir system illuminates how boosters, engineers, and conservationists attempted to resolve water problems, and the social conflict and environmental questions those solutions sparked. Furthermore, this dissertation enriches New South to Sunbelt scholarship by integrating critical factors – water resources, political power, and energy production – into existing narratives. Southerners have toiled for over a century to make use of and control water. But for all the corporate, state, and citizen investment, the flooding and droughts continue to threaten communities, damage economies, and shape river valleys. The American South has much to share with, and learn from, other regions grappling with what are clearly national water problems. INDEX WORDS: Southern States, New South, Sunbelt, Piedmont, Environmental conditions, Floods, Drought, Rivers, Savannah River Valley, Georgia, South Carolina, Water supply, Hydroelectricity, Energy, Dams, Reservoirs, Lakes, J. Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake at Clarks Hill, Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake, Hartwell Dam and Lake, Environmental policy, Water resources development policy, Environmentalism, Textile industry, Recreation, Georgia Power Company, Southern Company, Duke Energy, United States Army Corps of Engineers, Chattooga Wild and Scenic River DAM CRAZY WITH WILD CONSEQUENCES: ARTIFICIAL LAKES AND NATURAL RIVERS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1845-1990 by CHRISTOPHER JOHN MANGANIELLO B.A., Eckerd College, 1995 M.A., Western Carolina University, 2003 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2010 © 2010 Christopher John Manganiello All Rights Reserved DAM CRAZY WITH WILD CONSEQUENCES: ARTIFICIAL LAKES AND NATURAL RIVERS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1845-1990 by CHRISTOPHER JOHN MANGANIELLO Major Professor: Paul S. Sutter Committee: James C. Cobb Shane Hamilton Bethany Moreton Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have a ton of gratitude for my Western Carolina University people who guided me in my experiment with graduate school. Scott Philyaw gave me free range to develop my interest in environmental history, and Daniel Pierce and Vicki Szabo graciously served on my thesis committee. Richard Starnes helped me recognize the Savannah River valley was a good place to focus on. And Rob Ferguson had the brilliant foresight to see “dam crazy” – a comment I made in a passing discussion about my research – as something to file away for future use. Libby McRae, Gael Graham, and Daniel Menestres taught me about the historians’ craft and why history matters. I have many people to thank for reading seminar papers and chapter drafts, and for commenting on presentations that led to this dissertation. From University of Georgia, I am indebted for the time and energy put for by: Chase Hagood, John Hayes, Ivy Holliman, Catherine Holmes, John Inscoe, Jason Manthorne, Barton Meyers, Kathi Nehls, Tom Okie, Drew Swanson, Levi Van Sant, and the Georgia Workshop in the History of Agriculture and Environment participants. In particular, I am indebted to Bert Way for serving as a sounding board, and for his southern environmental and geographical knowledge. Mark Hersey and Claire Strom asked the right questions at the 2009 Workshop for the History of Environment, Agriculture, Technology, and Science (WHEATS) where Jim Giesen also helped me think through the South’s “water problem.” Jeffrey Stine, Pete Daniel, and the National Museum of American History colloquium fellows fostered a wonderful intellectual environment. Jeffrey and Pete also gave me excellent advice and feedback on chapters I drafted during my Smithsonian Institution iv tenure. Scout Blum, Marty Reuss, and Mart Stewart provided fantastic and critical commentator-feedback on conference papers that evolved into dissertation chapters. Many librarians, archivists, and a least one lawyer helped with this project (and put up with my marathon archival visits), including: Eugene Futato (University of Alabama), Leanda Gahegan (National Anthropological Archives), Herb Hartsook (South Carolina Political Collections), Guy Howard (National Archives Southeast Region), and Jill Sevren (Richard B. Russell Library for Political Studies). While I am acknowledging library staff, I especially want to thank all the library administrators who trust historians to use digital cameras appropriately and safely in the collections under archivists’ care. As personal and intuitional budgets for travel and photo-copies evaporate, digital cameras make quick trips to the archives affordable and extremely productive while also protecting the health and integrity of individual documents. This dissertation would have been very different – and lacking – if I had not been empowered to make my own digital versions of critical documents. I encourage all library staff to consider adopting liberal digital reproduction options. I also implore researchers to abide by the rules so we do not lose the existing privileges. My committee members – particularly Jim Cobb and Shane Hamilton – have experienced portions of this dissertation as seminar papers and presentations for a few years. Bethany Moreton graciously signed on in the proposal phase. I hope they all found their thinking – on politics, industrial economy, and corporate power – in these pages. If not, well, I’ve got more revising to do. Paul Sutter has been with this project even longer. His endless enthusiasm, perfectly packaged advice, and inspirational intellectual scope affected each and every page in one way or another. I cannot thank Paul enough for all of the advice, professional opportunities, v and energy he has contributed to my academic career. As scholars, teachers, and community leaders, this committee is an exemplary justification for funding higher education. Family always matters. My siblings, Gabrielle and Vince, and their families, have been great teachers in their own right. Their own knowledge and experiences in the world have shaped mine. I only wish we didn’t have to wait for holidays to share more. My parents, Vince and Caroline, have offered unending support and truly believe in education and intellectual curiosity. I am not the doctor my parents expected to raise (thankfully my cousin will carry on that family legacy), but I am a doctor whose orders they may have to heed in time. I said it once before, and it never hurts to repeat the important things: I could never repay my parents for all of their support and trust. And I thank them for teaching me about working hard, loving properly, and finding my own way. Finally, I can happily say that Lila has been a part of my life for longer then I have been working on this project. She didn’t do my laundry, transcribe my notes, or proofread my chapters. Lila has put up with a lot – those lost months I spent reading for comps, my short research trips, and my long absence near the end. She didn’t ask for it, but for her continuing support and love, I give her this dissertation so we can both move on. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................................................ ix INTRODUCTION Southern Water, Southern