AMH 3630-5065
American Environmental History
T 5-6 (11:45-1:40), TR 6 (12:50-1:40)/Flint 105
Professor Jack E. Davis Fall 2006 davisjac@ufl.edu Ofc. Flint 235
Ofc. Hrs.: T & TR 1:45-3:15 PM 392-0271, ext. 251
This course is a substantive and interpretive inquiry into the historical roots of the nation's contemporary environmental issues. It covers the period from before the Columbian explorations to the present. Presented within the context of the larger and more familiar historical experience, it is a relatively comprehensive overview of the relationship between people and their natural physical surroundings. It begins on the premise that the natural environment has been not only a passive object--which humans contemplated, exploited, or protected--but also an active variable in shaping the course of American history.
Students should finish this course with expanded knowledge of the integral place of the environment in American history. A principal ambition of the course is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the American experience. If we incorporate the human relationship with the environment into our study of the past, we gain clearer insight into the identity, beliefs, and values of human groups and how each defined its relationship with others.
Course Objectives:
C Expanding one's knowledge of environmental history and its place in the larger American experience.
C Introducing the student to scholarship in environmental history.
C Promoting critical thinking about the human relationship with nature and its impact in the social relationships among different human groups.
Course Requirements:
$ Class participation 10%
C Take-home essays (2 X 25%) 50%
C Archive research and paper 20%
$ Internet research and paper 20%
$ Writing Mechanics exercise (factored into all writing assignments)
Assigned Texts:
William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
Kirkpatrick Sale, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962-1992
Ted Steinberg, Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History
Donald Worster, The Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s
Week I (August 24): Introduction: The Natural Web of History
Film: "The Earth Day Special"
Readings:
Steinberg, prologue
Mark Hertsgaard, "While Washington Slept"; Michael Shnayerson, "The Rape of Appalachia," Vanity Fair 549 (May 2006) (access though InfoTrac or LexisNexis).
Week II (August 29 & 31): New World Meets Old
Readings:
Steinberg, chapters 1 and 2
Week III (September 5 & 7): Anglos and Indians
Readings:
Cronon, all
Writing Mechanics Exercise Due Tuesday
Week IV (September 12 & 14): The 19th-Century Landscape-Perceptions and Realities
Readings:
Steinberg, chapters 3 and 4
Archive Orientation, Thursday, with Dr. James Cusick
Week V (September 19 & 21):King Cotton and the Civil War
Readings:
Steinberg, chapters 5 and 6
Week VI (September 26 & 28): The New South, the West, and the Locomotive Force of Change
Readings:
Steinberg, chapters 7 and 8
(No Class September 28)
Week VII (October 3 & 5) The Urban Wilderness
Readings:
Steinberg, chapter 10
Take-Home Essay # 1 Due
Week VIII (October 10 & 12): Organized Conservation
Readings:
Steinberg, chapter 9;
Week IX (October 17 & 19): Organized Conservation cont.
Readings:
Carolyn Merchant, "Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement, 1900-1916," Environmental Review 8 (Spring 1984): 57-86.
Internet Research Paper Due
Week X (October 24 & 26): Sunshine Environments
Readings:
Steinberg, chapter 11
Film:
"Cadillac Desert" episode 1
(No Class October 26)
Week XI (October 31 & November 2): Sunshine Environments contd.
Readings:
Jack E. Davis, "Up From the Sawgrass: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Influence of Female Activism in Florida Conservation," Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida, eds. Jack E. Davis and Kari Frederickson (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 147-76.
Week XII (November 7 & 9): Economic Depression and New Deal Conservation
Readings:
Worster, all.
Film:
"Cadillac Desert" episode 2
Week XIII (November 14 & 16): World War II
Readings:
Steinberg, chapter 12
Week XIV (November 21 and Thanksgiving Holiday): Consumer Culture
Readings:
Steinberg, chapters 13 and 14
Film:
"Cadillac Desert" episode 3
Archive Assignment Due
Week XV (November 28 & 30): Environmental Backlash
Readings:
Sales, all
Film: "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring"
Week XVI (December 5): The Last Hurrah
Take-Essay #2 Due
Final Exam Day (You have no in-class exams in this course. During the university's scheduled hours for the final exam, you may pick up your paper in my office. December 12, 3-5PM.)
Course Requirements Descriptions:
All written work for the course must be typed or computer generated and in 12-point double-spaced print. Your work must also be presented in third-person language.
Class participation means that students must come to class prepared to participate in discussions. Classes will be conducted in both a lecture and seminar format. Attendance is required. Doctor's notes for a cold or flu or other such common ailments do not amount to an excused absence.
Beyond two absences, each additional absence occurring will result in one point deducted from your final grade. If the class is particularly lethargic when it should be animated and eager to discuss the reading assignment, the frustrated professor deserves the right to give a pop (i.e., surprise) quiz. Your experience in the course will largely depend on how well prepared you are for class.
Writing Mechanics exercise can be found on my web site. Download and answer the questions by circling that which you believe to be the correct response. You will be required to follow the rules of writing mechanics in all writing assignments for the course. Up to five points will be deducted from your assignment grade if you fail to follow these rules.
Take-home essays will represent responses to a list of essay questions posted on my web site. The questions will be drawn from the assigned readings and the course lectures, and you will be expected to use the course readings and your class notes as sources to answer the questions. Each answer must be presented in essay format, using formal, academic language and style (i.e., complete sentences, tightly constructed paragraphs, no colloquialisms). Do not, in other words, provide answers in lists or bullets. Those essays that address each question in a rigorous and organized manner are more likely to earn a decent grade. These grades, too, will be determined part by your compliance with the rules in the "Writing Mechanics" exercise.
Internet exercise requires that you write a five-page paper, with foot notes and bibliography attached, using original-source materials from one or more of the following academic websites: Florida Heritage Collection, Reclaiming the Everglades, Southwest Florida Environmental Documents, and Florida's Natural Heritage. Links to all these sources are available on my website. Your paper should have an environmental topic, such as the agricultural exploitation of the Everglades, the views and work of an environmental activist, or the impact of nature on early Florida tourism. Be careful not to simply retell or describe what you find in on-line documents-such as letters, corporate papers, advertisements, and diaries. You should put your source materials and topic in historical context. Doing so will require you to utilize secondary-source materials-history books, biographies, etc. For example, if you find on-line information about drainage in the Everglades in the early twentieth century, you will need to consult books about important historical individuals, places, or events. (ALL THIS IS IMPORTANT TO EARNING A GOOD GRADE.)
Archive exercise asks you to write a five-page paper with footnotes and bibliography attached. You will be required to use archival materials from the University of Florida Special and Area Studies Collections. The best materials from these collections and for the purpose of this course focus on Florida history. You might write a short environmental history of your home county; or about the human-nature relationship as recorded in the letters, journal, or diary of an early Florida pioneer; or about the environments that early travel writers of the South encountered. We will attend an orientation at the Special Collections library that will familiarize you with the primary-source materials available. One objective of this assignment is to give you experience working in archival materials-hard-copy matter as opposed to Internet sources. Such materials should form the bulk of your sources used for this paper. As with the Internet paper, you will need to present your subject in historical context.
Again, following the rules of the "Writing Mechanics" exercise is imperative to completing work of full potential.
Other Business:
Plagiarism:
Keep in mind that your written assignments must represent original work. You cannot copy the words, phrases, arguments, ideas, and conclusions of someone else or of another source (including Internet sources) without giving proper credit to the person or source by using both quotation marks and a foot note. Do not cobble together paragraphs or passages of separate texts and then try to claim that you have done original and legitimate work. You must write with your own ideas and in your own words. If you copy the words of someone else without putting those words in quotation marks, REGARDLESS OF CITING THE SOURCE, you are plagiarizing. Plagiarism is theft, and it is academic dishonesty. You can be reported to the Dean of Students office for plagiarism, and the incident may then become a permanent part of your academic record. Plagiarism will earn you a failing grade in the course, a grade that is final and that cannot be made up. If you have any questions about how you are citing or using sources, come to me for the answers. Please also review the university's honesty policy at: {http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/academic.htm}.
Classroom Assistance:
Please do not hesitate to contact the instructor during the semester if you have any individual concerns or issues that need to be discussed. Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office {http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drp/}. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide that documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.
History Majors:
If you are a history major or minor and wish to receive important announcements on courses, scholarships, awards, and the Phi Alpha Theta Honor Society, please sign on to the history department listserv. Compose a message to: majordomo@clas.ufl.edu. In the text of the message, type the following: subscribe hist-ba@history.ufl.edu
Alpata: A Journal of History
Keep in mind that the undergraduate- and graduate-student members of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society at the University of Florida publish an academic journal each spring. In the fall, the journal editors will be sending out a a call for submissions (articles and book reviews) to the journal. The journal is also looking for talented students who would like to serve on the editorial board. Please contact me if you're interested.