History 162: Lectures 15 & 16

History 263: Readings in Frontier and Western History



History 162: Lectures 15 and 16
THE GREAT AMERICAN MIRAGE
OR HOW THE WEST WAS WATERED

  1. Leaving Las Vegas

  2. The Greening of the Great American Desert
    1. Pastoral Myth vs. Hydraulic Society
    2. "Rain Follows the Plow"
    3. Homesteading in a Dry Country

  3. Irrigation and the Rise of Agribusiness
    1. Water Rights
    2. The Democratic Promise of Irrigation
    3. The Federalization of Western Water: The Newlands Act (1902)
    4. The Grapes of Wealth: Democracy Denied?

  4. The Federalization of Western Land
    1. Public Lands and the Consolidation of the Federal West
    2. Instrumentalism, Infinite Resources, and Unbridled Development
    3. Restraining Development
      1. Conservationism and the Gospel of Efficiency: Gifford Pinchot and the US Forest Service
      2. John Muir and the Quest for Preservation
      3. The Closing of the Frontier and the Cult of Wilderness
      4. Monumentalism and the Creation of National Parks
    4. The Fight Over Hetch-Hetchy

  5. "An Oasis Civilization"


Visuals


Irrigation, Dams and Aquifiers


Major Water Projects of California


Federal Presence in the Contemporary West