Water – American Environments to 1893

March 30, 2014

Nature’s Place as a Product

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William Cronon’s Parts II and III of Nature’s Metropolis analyze the commodification of various goods which became national commodities through Chicago as a major trading center. Through these two sections, Cronon describes the standardization of grain production, the significant rise in the trade of lumber, as well as the development of the intercontinental meat packing industry, all of which passed through Chicago as a bridge into the national market of the USA.

One of the most interesting chapters of Cronon’s Part II is his work on the growth of the lumber industry in Chicago, specifically in the way humans used natural forces to their advantage. In describing the seasonality of the lumber industry, Cronon indicated that loggers often flooded skidways with water, which then froze, allowing them to easily move the enormous loads of logs from point A to B (156). This tactic seemed incredibly innovative to me and represented both humans “using” their environment, as well as shaping it. In terms of using it, the loggers knew that water naturally froze when cold enough, which it often is during the winter months of Chicago, so they took advantage of this natural occurrence for their benefit. Meanwhile, they also altered their environment by flooding and freezing a region that would not have faced these conditions without human alteration. Though Cronon does not mention any negative effects of this change, it would be interesting to see how the transportation methods of the Chicago logging industry in the 1870s effected the environment and its natural inhabitants (outside of humans).

Again on the topic of water, Cronon makes similar claims compared to Theodore Steinberg regarding the pollution of water through its usage to dispose of waste. In his description of the waste from the Chicago pork packers, Cronon indicates that they used the water to dispose of these materials, taking on the perspective of “out of sight, out of smell, out of mind” (249). Steinberg, in his work of Nature Incorporated indicated that New Englanders also took on this ignorant perspective regarding their effects to the environment. The similarity between the ideologies of these two areas provided an answer for me regarding our question in class about country wide claims we could make about water politics. It seems that across the country, Americans in the 19^th century viewed water as their tool for whatever they deemed fit, instead of a natural resource that could be destroyed. Through their negligence, both the purity of the water in New England and Chicago was diminished through the dumping of waste.

I believe Chelsea’s comment about capital dominating human life defines my comments about the way both Cronon and Steinberg indicated American perceptions of water. Rather than water as a natural commodity, something for everyone to enjoy, it seems that people only saw it for the benefits it could provide them in terms of financial gain. With the Chicago Meat Packers, water for them was an easy and free way to dispose of waste, saving them money but costing the environment. Similarly in New England, the industrialists also took on this ideology, while also viewing the water as a controllable energy source to provide them power for their factories. Though I agree with Chelsea’s description, I believe her statement about humanity’s priority of financial gain only sometimes effecting nature needs to be expanded in order to truly incorporate all the effects that human monetary decisions have had on the environment, specifically in the 19^th century. The killing off the buffalo for robes and leather, the laying of the railroad throughout the land, and the establishment of cities into the west all were based off economic growth, each effecting the environment in a number of ways. I would love to be wrong about this, as it would reflect a better humanity, but our past large scale economic decisions seemed to have affected the environment in a number of lasting ways.

March 23, 2014

Humanity’s Domination of Nature in “Nature Incorporated”

Theodore Steinberg’s Nature Incorporated for me helped further enforce the idea that humanity and nature coexist in his discussion of the industrial growth in New England and its interactions with water. Steinberg discusses the relationship between nature and society, both economically and legally, and in doing so shows how humans coexisted with nature by controlling it, but despite this control, the nature could counteract it as humans became dependent on it (ie: water/typhoid fever).

Throughout this class we have looked at how nature and humanity have interacted and coexisted, and Steinberg brings in a new perspective. William Cronon discussed in Nature’s Metropolis the economic relationship between nature and human urbanization with the railroad system, seeing railroads as natural. Steinberg creates an economic relationship between nature and human urbanization as well, but with a more obvious component of nature (water). He effectively argues how water instigated economic competition and made water a privatized commodity controlled by man.

At first glance I thought Manish’s connection between War Upon the Land and Nature Incorporated was a stretch, as in the former there was a clear distinction between nature and humanity while in the latter I read the two as one and the same. However I bought the connection once Manish argued that nature was a setting in Steinberg’s work, not a character, a point I find intelligent that helps explain how humans could try and control nature yet be a part of it. The idea of nature as a setting rather than a separate actor allows humans to exist within it, even if the human element has negative effects on the prior existing environment.

A lot of this discussion has been centered on human’s “conquering” of nature in Nature Incorporated, and I believe that this “conquering” is just indicative of humanity’s greater role within the environment, not human’s overtaking the environment. As Emily noted in her post this idea of domination is reinforced with Steinberg’s word choice, yet I interpreted Steinberg’s points as industrialization being another stage of nature’s evolution. Throughout human history people have used elements of nature to survive, whether it be collecting lumber or hunting for sustenance. For me, Steinberg’s discussing of humanity and water convinces me further that urbanization and industrialization is nature and that human’s new usage, dependence, and privatization of water is just a new role water is playing relative to societal evolution, and that the domination is a sign of humanity’s greater role within the environment.

As Ian wrote in his discussion of the chapter “Fouled Water,” industrialization had a clear negative impact on the environment through pollution. The effect on water obviously was a negative one, and Steinberg is critical of this industrialization. I believe that despite the negative effects human had on the New England environment, that doesn’t mean that the humans moving in and industrializing the area means they are not a part of the environment, but instead a dominant part.

March 23, 2014

Further Complication of Human “Naturalness”

Theodore Steinberg’s Nature Incorporated offers a detailed analysis of the industrialization of New England’s waterways during the nineteenth century. It covers the rise of textile mills along rivers and the resulting shifts in both human society and the natural ecology of rivers. One prominent shift that Steinberg covered throughout the book was the human view of water ownership. The human conception of water use was constantly evolving during the nineteenth century. At the start of the book, water was viewed as a public resource. Many individuals fished in the rivers during the spring months. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, water could be owned and controlled by an individual mill-owner or a large industrial company as long as it was used for the common good. This allowed industry to gain a controlling interest over many of New England’s rivers.

I do think that Manish makes a nice observation about the differing roles of nature in the book by Steinberg as compared to Lisa M. Brady’s War Upon the Land. Much of our last class focused on the discussion of nature as a prominent third actor in the Civil War. In her book, Brady clearly argued that nature was at times as much an enemy of the Union as was the Confederate Army. The nature presented in Steinberg’s work, however, is comparatively much more passive. Throughout the work nature, and water in particular, is a resource fought over by humans. Water does not act on humans, but is instead controlled according to human interests. The actors in Steinberg’s book are humans—the courts, textile industries, and local New England citizens—not nature.

One comment by Steinberg that caught my attention and reminded me of past in-class conversations about the “naturalness” of human civilizations was the claim that “none of nature’s predators has the sharp capacity for reasoned thought that make human beings so potentially harmful to other species” (167-68). Steinberg offered this argument in his chapter titled “Depleted Waters,” which discussed the diminishing number of fish in the New England waterways as a result of nineteenth-century industrialization and overfishing. The first thing I thought of when I read this statement was Ian’s claim that “since birds build nests, it is natural for humans to construct buildings.” I think that Ian makes a strong argument, but the importance of reasoned thought must be considered. A bird building a nest seems like the most basic form of housing. In my opinion, the human equivalent of a bird’s nest is the teepee or log cabin. Both of those structures are very basic and really only provide minimal protection from the elements. More modern structures such as skyscrapers and apartment complexes, however, require much more “reasoned thought” on the part of humans. There are no natural equivalents in the animal world of the skyscraper or apartment complex. While this does not necessarily mean that human constructions are unnatural, I do think that the human ability for “reasoned thought” does further complicate the discussion about the naturalness of human constructions.

March 23, 2014

Water: The Source Behind New England’s Industrialization

Theodore Steinberg’s Nature Incorporated is a compelling piece that offers a detailed analysis of the development of water as a source of power within 19^th century New England. From the outset of the piece, Steinberg frames 19^th century New England’s Industrial sector’s view on nature as “new sources of energy and raw materials” (11). Through this ideology, companies within New England, like the Merrimack Company and Hamilton Company, persisted to exhibit their control upon the nature of the region, most notably the extensive rivers and streams. In this manner, rivers like the Merrimack River were economically transformed into that of a commodity rather than a piece of nature (16).

One of the most compelling arguments from Steinberg’s book is the chapter titled “Fouled Water,” which details the effects of the growth of industry on the rivers within New England. Steinberg describes the effects of industrialization on New England’s water systems as creating “a new ecology of its own with far reaching effects on the water quality of the region’s rivers, and ultimately human existence itself” (206). The rivers in New England became a quick and easy way to dispose of the pollution from various industrial plants, such as paper mills, as well as the overall waste products of the growing population (209, 211). Though some amount of pollution is inevitable, it eventually reached the point in 1870s where the Merrimack River was so polluted from factories along it that it was unfit for domestic purposes, thereby human consumption (224). In fact, due to the enormous amount of waste this river was carrying within its waters, by the 1880s it also became the source of an outbreak of Typhoid Fever within the cities of Lowell and Lawrence (233). These examples, along with many others are the backbone of Steinberg’s argument regarding the negative effects of industrialization on the New England Rivers. Through them, it is easy to see how drastic of an effect industrialization brought upon these waters, as they were transformed into sources of disease and contamination.

Similar to the rivers and streams of New England, I have seen the effects of human pollutants on a water system with the Erie Canal. Though a man-made water system, the Erie Canal has been devastated by human hands through the dumping of waste into its water. I cannot speak for how it was at its start, but after years of trash being thrown into the water, it has a persistent murky brown if not greenish look, a red-flag regarding its level of cleanliness. As I often run along the canal when at home, I view the water as symbol of 19^th century perceptions on nature and its resources. They were not something to be preserved for their purity, but rather exploited as a commodity for industrial growth. Some might argue that the Erie Canal being man-made removes it from nature, but the water that fills it and the fish that inhabit it are both indicate of this waterways place within the environment.

After reading Emily’s post and comments on Steinberg’s neglect to differentiate “using” and “controlling” water, I would have to say I completely agree with her concerns. Though I did not initially realize his neglect until reading Emily’s post, looking back at the book, this appears as a significant shortcoming in the otherwise diligently constructed book. I see a major difference in the two verbs, as we today all use water for various purposes, such as drinking, cleaning, etc., but I doubt any of us claim to control the water in which we use like Steinberg argues 19^th century New England Industrialists did. If he had differentiated this within his work, I believe his argument would have come off as stronger, for he would indicate a clear cut difference in the way Industrialists controlled the flow and power of water vs. your average Lowell citizen using the Merrimack River to wash their clothes. Without a differentiation and clear definition in terms, he almost groups these people together in the way they “used” water, but it is clear from his argument that he perceives their usage as drastically different.

March 23, 2014

The “air thick with progress” and “water…at the heart of it all”

In Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England , Theodore Steinberg uses a variety of strong verbs to describe how humans intervened in New England’s waterways. “Compelled by these plans to control the natural world, they developed the water, improved it for sale, and managed it with an eye toward its economic potential” (95). This sentence exhibits many of Steinberg’s verbs: controlled, developed, improved, and managed; others he employed throughout the book include dominated, manipulated, and tapped.

Besides displaying Steinberg’s varied diction, I bring up this issue of verbs because it troubled me. Throughout the book, I kept wondering why Steinberg did not ever write the word ‘used’ to refer to how New Englanders dealt with water. The closest any characters in this history come to just plain old using water are Native Americans, early white settlers who “used rivers at first to mark the periphery and limits of their land” (24), and settlers who established agricultural systems in the region. The compulsion to control marks the rest of the history of New England’s water in Steinberg’s view. I agree with his argument to an extent and see the validity of how industrialization shaped the rivers and streams (and how people thought about water as a resource), but I do wish he would have explicitly stated the difference between ‘using’ and ‘controlling’ water and showed ways in which that was possible.

Steinberg bookends his argument with the case of Henry David Thoreau who acts as a foil to industrializing New Englanders: both interact very differently with the same waterways. Thoreau’s account offers an enlightening cultural/artistic perspective, but does it help Steinberg’s argument? I think it mainly serves to create a dualism between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ uses of nature: one is appreciative and the other is exploitative. Neither provide an opportunity for a third way in which humans can use and not abuse the resource of water.

In Manish’s post, I find a similar concern to my own. He writes, “the relationship between man and nature is best when man demonstrates a balance. He can utilize nature as a resource for his own benefit but he must take caution for abuse of the land can lead nature to grave repercussions such as illness.” There probably are examples of ways in which this balance occurred in nineteenth-century New England, but Steinberg chooses to focus on the transformative effects of industrialization. That is a legitimate focus because change is exciting and maybe history would be terribly boring without it.

March 22, 2014

Nature Incorporated: Has Industry Allowed Man to Control Nature?

Theodore Steinberg’s Nature Incorporated is a fitting book to read after Lisa Brady’s War Upon the Land for both texts discuss how Americans attempted to control nature in order to achieve some greater goal. This idea of attempted control over nature was something that Chelsea noted in her post from last week. While these two texts share the assumption that Americans believed they could control nature they differ on other ideas such as nature as an actor. Unlike Brady, Steinberg portrays nature much more as a setting rather than a character. It is not something with a consciousness but rather a resource or platform upon which man acts.

For the most part in the early stages of the book Steinberg seems to believe that humans could exert control over the land. He believed that human history “is defined by the transformation and control of nature.” (12) The larger question that he wants to address is how industrial transformation affected human society as well as alter human’s relationship with the natural world. He attempts to answer this question by pursuing three goals. First, examine industrial capitalism through an environmental perspective. Second, examine the competition over nature. Finally, explore the legal history of water in New England.

In my opinion Steinberg has done a good job overall in trying to properly understand the ideas that he poses. The layout of the book sets up an interesting narrative that makes clear the development of industry in New England, the transformation of a natural feature into a resource to be privatized, the resulting competition and the legal precedence that allowed for water to become a foundation upon which industry would rise and dominate the surrounding region and eventually the nation.

While the overall work is one that should be commended, I did find some areas that confused me. On page 69 Steinberg describes how the Boston Associates succeeded in altering the perception of the relationship between man and nature. Originally, nature was something that restrained humanity and limited opportunities. However, with the rise of industry this relationship was reversed and humans were longer dependent on ecology. Humanity had become independent allowing for unlimited opportunity.

However, later in his book Steinberg speaks about how cities are not divorced from the natural world. Cities in my mind are the epitome of industrialism. The urban sprawl is the heartland of industry and innovation. Despite cities being “monuments to human ingenuity” (220) Steinberg believed that they remained as dependent on the natural world as any community in the wilderness.

The second to last section of the book entitled “Fouled Water” speaks about how the water turned against those who had “control” over it. In November 1905 typhoid fever killed more people in Lowell than in all of Boston due to the pathogens that were pumped into the town thanks to the river which had been the source of economic success for so long.

The differing presentations of nature (one which was subjugated to man vs. one that man was completely reliant upon) make it seem as if Steinberg himself is not quite convinced that industrialization had completely “conquered” nature. While man can exert some control over nature he cannot ever divorce himself away from it. The relationship between man and nature is best when man demonstrates a balance. He can utilize nature as a resource for his own benefit but he must take caution for abuse of the land can lead nature to grave repercussions such as illness. Man must also be aware of his over consumption for not only does it change the environment for the worse but over consumption will also threaten social stability as demonstrated in all of the legal cases discussed throughout the book.