Landscapes of Promise

The Oregon Story, 1800-1940

William G. Robbins

• Éditeur: University of Washington Press
• Année: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780295989693
• Sujet: Historia
• Sous-sujet: Historia de Norteamérica

Landscapes of Promise is the first comprehensive environmental history of the early years of a state that has long been associated with environmental protection. Covering the period from early human habitation to the end of World War II, William Robbins shows that the reality of Oregon's environmental history involves far more than a discussion of timber cutting and land-use planning. Robbins demonstrates that ecological change is not only a creation of modern industrial society. Native Americans altered their environment in a number of ways, including the planned annual burning of grasslands and light-burning of understory forest debris. Early Euro-American settlers who thought they were taming a virgin wilderness were merely imposing a new set of alterations on an already modified landscape. Beginning with the first 18th-century traders on the Pacific Coast, alterations to Oregon's landscape were closely linked to the interests of global market forces. Robbins uses period speeches and publications to document the increasing commodification of the landscape and its products. "Environment melts before the man who is in earnest, " wrote one Oregon booster in 1905, reflecting prevailing ways of thinking. In an impressive synthesis of primary sources and historical analysis, Robbins traces the transformation of the Oregon landscape and the evolution of our attitudes toward the natural world.

Index

Abbott, Carl, 197

Abbott, Henry L., 45, 223

Abundance: nineteenth-century narratives of, 4; of Indian horses, 47; of salmon, 50, 140; promise of, 179, 184; link to manufactures, 182–83; marketing of, 191; and need for industrial infrastructure, 199; of timber supply, 213

Adams, Charles Francis, 243

Adams, John Quincy, 49

Agriculture, 112; societies of, 6, 101, 116; and Neolithic revolution, 26; absence of, during Indian period, 29; Hudson's Bay Co. observes potential for, 55; subsistence activities, 61, 73; and biological and physical changes, 64, 71; disturbances created by, 65; western valleys favored, 65; in Willamette Valley, 70–74, 92; missionaries' practice of, 71; expansion of, 72, 91; as vanguard of ecological change, 81; practices in the last millennium, 81; and distant influences, 82; shift to commercial operations, 82, 174; technology, 89, 91, 101, 127, 184; requirements for success, 99; markets for, 100; destruction of pests, 106; and population, 107; speeds movement of goods, 115; railroads and golden age of, 115; in Douglas County, 127; boosters of, 149; beginnings on Columbia Plateau, 155; federal census for, 162; clearing land for, 220; water diversions in Klamath Basin, 250; dryland, 254–58; in Deschutes Basin, 259; progress through irrigation, 264; interests oppose dam on Klamath River, 277

Ainsworth, J. C., 290

Alaska, 140

Allen, Barbara, Homesteading the High Desert, 254–58

Allen, John Logan, 52

Alvord Basin, 159

American Falls, 8

American Guide Series. See Oregon Writers' Project

Applegate, Jesse, 111; as immigrant to Umpqua Valley, 86; on Umpqua agriculture, 87–88; and killing deer, 88; on dense forest growth, 207

Applegate family, 87

Archaeology, 28, 30

Arid ecosystems, 38–45

Ashland Tidings, 38

Astor, John Jacob, 53, 54, 206

Athapascans, 38

Audubon Society, 253

Baillie-Grohman, William Randolph, 241–42

Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 135–36

Baker City, 171

Baker County, 172

Bannock Indians, 160

Beaver: role of fire in habitat, 41; and native people, 54; early decline of, 56; dams, 99, 164, 167–68

Belshaw, George, 48

Bend: arrival of railroad, 203, 230; convenient location of, 230; as sawmilling center, 231, 233–34; transition of, 309–10

Bend Bulletin, 233

Bennett, James G., 72

Be...