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In 1972, a flood tore through Rapid City, South Dakota, killing 238 people. Many whose lives and homes were destroyed lived in a predominately Native American neighborhood known as “Osh Kosh Camp.” This dissertation asks: why did those people lived in that neighborhood at that time? The answer lies at the intersection of the histories of race and environment in the American West. In the Black Hills region, white Americans racialized certain spaces under the conceptual framework of Indian Country as part of the process of American conquest on the northern plains beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. The American project of racializing Western spaces erased Indians from histories of Rapid City, a process most obviously apparent in the construction of Mount Rushmore as a tourist attraction. Despite this attempted erasure, Indians continued to live and work in the city and throughout the Black Hills. In Rapid City, rampant discrimination forced Native Americans in Rapid City to live in neighborhoods cut off from city services, including Osh Kosh Camp After the flood, activists retook the Indian Country concept as a tool of protest. This dissertation claims that environment and race must be understood together in the American West. / History

Throughout much of the twentieth century Walt Disney wielded considerable influence in American culture. By identifying and commercially exploiting a strain of environmental thought that sentimentalized and romanticized nature, Walt Disney influenced the attitudes of millions of Americans concerning how they conceptualized environmental issues. The Walt Disney Company’s nature documentaries and their popularity as both entertainment as well as educational material helped disseminate the virtues of conservation within the American mindset. The Disney interpretation of conservation clashed with other post-war environmental understandings of the ethic, as did the company’s consistently inaccurate representations of nature on film. Disney’s particular strain of environmentalism, based on an Edenic appreciation for nature, the belief that to conserve land it must be developed, and practice of moralizing to humans through anthropomorphized depictions of animal behavior, stood out in contrast to other existing post-war environmental mindsets during the controversy surrounded the proposed construction of a vacation resort in Mineral King, California, following Disney’s death. / History

This dissertation examines the origins and development of the cheese industry in rural Ontario between the 1860s and 1930s from the perspective of environmental history. Scholars have generally accepted contemporary beliefs that cheese was a “natural industry of this country” and that its growth was cooperative and inevitable. This dissertation tests these claims by comparing the rhetoric and actions of the rural elite and state officials against the human and extra-human work involved in manufacturing cheese for export, a method that has yielded new interpretations about the character and development of the industry. I build on James Murton’s concept of “alternative rural modernity” to argue that rural cheese manufacturing was a project of rural reform encouraged by elite ‘dairy reformers,’ rather than a natural development. Reformers believed cheese factories could support the social, economic and environmental stability of rural society indefinitely. Through cheese, they sought to create a society that was liberal and capitalist, but also cooperative and stable. They also believed that dairying would restore fertility to the region’s soils. In practice, however, their results were mixed. Although cheese became one of the province’s most significant export-oriented industries, transformed the environment, and deepened liberal values amongst rural people, it failed to deliver the alternative rural modernity reformers had envisioned. I provide two reasons why. First, the reformers’ mechanistic vision could not contend with the complexity and unpredictability of the socio-ecological world they sought to control. Second, the industry could not withstand the pressures of the emerging global capitalist food system and, ironically, facilitated the rise of ‘Big Dairy’ after the First World War, which hastened the industry’s demise. Overall, this dissertation emphasizes the dynamism of rural Ontario, contributes to an environmental history of liberal order in Canada, and contextualizes the resurgence of craft-based rural development in the twenty-first century. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation examines the origins and development of the factory cheese industry in rural Ontario between the 1860s and 1930s. I challenge the belief that cheese manufacturing was a “natural industry of this country” whose development was cooperative and inevitable. Instead I argue that the industry was a deliberate project of rural reform encouraged by elite ‘dairy reformers’ who believed cheese factories could sustain the social, economic, and environmental progress of rural society indefinitely. The industry failed to deliver all the reformers promised, even though it became one of the province’s most significant export-oriented industries by the early-twentieth century and transformed the environment and rural society in the process. Rural people and the environment behaved in more complicated ways than reformers anticipated, and the changing capitalist economy made the industry’s long-term success untenable. This study also contextualizes the twenty-first century resurgence of craft production in Ontario.

This thesis deals with perceptions of refuse as an asset or as a liability and the questions of waste management practices. The aim has been to gain new insights into Stockholm’s waste management in the period 1900–1975 by studying change and continuity in municipal practices and the notions that governed the municipal actors’ actions. The central questions are what factors determined the city’s waste management, and how an urban and local (environmental) problem was formulated and addressed by local authorities and political bodies. In answering, I have applied a theory of inertia in large technical–administrative systems and an analytical framework based on the concept of waste management regimes. During the period a resource recovery regime was replaced by an incineration regime. At the turn of the last century, the quantity and type of refuse produced by Stockholm’s rising population was compounded by increasing consumption. In order to modernize the capital’s waste disposal the city invested in resource recovery by introducing source separation. The fall in demand for fertilizer and a changing composition of the waste in the 1920s made it more difficult to get rid of refuse and led to an end of waste separation. Incineration came to be seen as the modern option and in 1938 Sweden’s first modern incineration plant for municipal waste was built outside Stockholm. The amount of waste produced by Stockholm nearly tripled between 1922, when it was at its lowest levels, and the mid-1960s. The late 1960s saw an even more dramatic increase. In the 1960s waste was discussed as an important environmental issue and in the 1970s recycling was implemented in small scale. At the national level recycling was adopted as a waste management aim in 1975.

The capercaillie is the largest member of the grouse family extant in Scotland. This species is reported to have become extinct during the 1700s. It is also reported to have been reintroduced to Scotland from Sweden during the 1800s. There have been many assertions made about the underlying causes of the decline of the species; however the specific causal factors remain unknown. The reintroduction of the capercaillie to Scotland in the 1800s is the only successful reintroduction of a grouse species ever to have occurred in the world. The specific factors behind the success of the reintroduction also remain unknown. This thesis examines the extent to which a selection of historical documentary evidence can help to establish both the causes of the 18th century decline of the capercaillie in Scotland and the successes of the 19th century reintroduction. The methodology of this thesis incorporates facets from the fields of both environmental science and history. The methodology includes three steps. The first step involves the selection of a series of potential critical factors that may have been responsible for the decline of the species in the 1700s; these critical factors were selected from the present day understanding of the ecology and the behaviour of the capercaillie. The second step of the methodology includes the surveying of a series of historical documentary sources. From these surveys historical observations of the species were gathered. The historical documentary sources selected for examination in this thesis include what are referred to here as ‘primary historical source material’ and ‘secondary historical source material’. The majority of the primary historical source material was gathered from the hand written manuscripts of the Breadalbane estate, held at the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) and the Atholl estate held at the Blair Castle Charter Room in Blair Atholl. Other select primary historical source material consulted to a lesser extent, due to time constraints, includes the Forfeited Estates (1745) Inventory and the Baron Court Records for Strathspey and Urquhart (1617–1683) from the Grant estate muniments; both held at the NAS. The secondary historical source material was gathered from published and edited literary collections that include historical accounts of the species. The third and final step of the methodology involves the synthesis of both the historical and environmental information in order to establish to what extent the causes of both the decline of the species in the 1700s and success of its reintroduction in the 1800s can be realised. The findings from this thesis assert that the capercaillie was resident in Scotland from, at least, the end of the Medieval. Moving forward from the Middle Ages this thesis presents observations of the capercaillie throughout the historical period. These observations of the capercaillie appear in many different historical accounts. In some instances these observations are fleeting and do not form the main subject of the particular document in question. In other instances accounts of the species are much more detailed and include references to the ecology and behaviour of the bird. The level of detail included in an observation aside, the frequency with which the species is referred to in the sample of historical documents suggests that sections of the Scottish human population were familiar with the species, in various locations and at various times throughout history. By the 17th century the capercaillie is reported as beginning to become rare in some locations while still remaining comparatively abundant in others. The number of instances where the species is referred to as becoming rare in the historical documents increases between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Despite the reported scarceness of the species in Scotland from around the 17th century onwards, the capercaillie is recorded as persisting in Scotland until around the end of the 1700s. By the early 1800s the number of observations of the species in the secondary historical source material increases. All of the observations in the secondary sources from the early 1800s record the absence of the species from localities and regions of Scotland. No new evidence was found in either the primary or secondary historical source material to challenge the supposition that the capercaillie did become extinct in Scotland after 1785. No detailed quantitative data was available for analysis of the decline of the species. Thus, to investigate the extent to which the historical accounts can help explain the specific causal factors of the reported decline, a synthesis of the environmental and historical data was necessary. The findings of this synthesis suggest that the naturally occurring Scottish population of capercaillie probably persisted in the form of a metapopulation. The two hundred years between the 17th and 19th century most likely saw the extinction of capercaillie sub-populations, before the loss of the overall population of capercaillie around 1785. The sample historical documentary evidence alludes to this pattern of local and/or regional extinction of sub-populations. The cause or causes of the extinction of these sub-populations has focussed on five limiting or critical factors known to affect the species today. These five factors are climate change, particularly weather effects associated with the Little Ice Age, habitat loss and deterioration, disturbance, human hunting and predation by species other than humans also contributed to the species’ extinction. The extent to which these critical factors affected each sub-population would have varied between regions of Scotland occupied by the capercaillie in history. This thesis proposes that there was no single or combination of specific critical factors that were ultimately responsible for the decline of the capercaillie in Scotland during the 1700s. In some areas the capercaillie sub-populations would have most likely died out as a result of habitat loss and deterioration and climate change. Whereas in others predation and inbreeding may have been the critical factors responsible for the species’ demise. More detailed information referring to the capercaillie was found in the historical documentary source material for the period post-extinction (i.e. 1800 onwards). Contrary to popular understanding numerous attempts to reintroduce the capercaillie to Scotland were carried out before the Marquis of Breadalbane’s successful programme in 1837. The historical documentary evidence reports early attempts to reintroduce the species to locations such as the Isle of Arran in 1807, on the Duke of Atholl’s estate in 1822 and on the Earl of Mar’s estate in 1824. None of these reintroduction programmes are reported to have been successful in establishing a ‘wild’ population. However, in some instances the captive rearing programmes initiated did bear some fruit and captive reared birds were sent from Dunkeld by the Duke of Atholl to Kenmore and were used in Breadalbane’s successful reintroduction in 1837. The historical documents report two causes for the failure of these early reintroduction attempts. The first is the sudden death of captive birds, most likely as a result of choking due to stress as observed in recent rearing programmes (i.e. Moss 1986). The reintroduced Arran population is reported to have become extinct in this fashion. The second reported cause of failure is predation by species other than man. For example the entire population of birds brought to Scotland by the Earl of Mar were predated when released on his estate. This thesis offers two critical factors as explanations for the remarkable success of the capercaillie’s reintroduction to Scotland in the 19th century. The first is the method by which the reintroduction was carried out; specifically, the re-establishment of a series of capercaillie sub-populations in different regions of Scotland.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Bonnie Lynn-Sherow / This thesis recreates the relationship between humans and their physical environment in Fort Scott, Kansas between 1850 and 1920 and uses the poetry of J.S. Penny, a contemporary amateur poet living and writing in Fort Scott, as an essential primary resource. Settlers came to this area in southeastern Kansas in the 19th century for its timber-lined streams, high precipitation, and rich soil. The Missouri River, Fort Scott, and Gulf Railroad was extended through Fort Scott in December of 1869. The arrival of the railroad transformed the town. The natural resources which had been a mark of identity for the people of Fort Scott became commodities to be sold in national markets. Manufacturing and industry boomed, but population would eventually plateau in the early 20th century, creating a small industrial city that had maintained a strongly rural sense of community. Penny’s poetry provides a personal, emotional response to the rapid changes to the landscape around him. Some of his poems on the local landscape directly note specific changes in the local ecology, while some demonstrate Penny’s religious connection the natural world—a common perspective during his time. Other pieces show us Penny’s observations of how his neighbors reacted to the weather and environment in Fort Scott. Penny, like many Americans in the early 20th century, saw the history of his home as one of agrarian development and westward expansion over an empty landscape; the Jeffersonian and Turnerian roots of his perspective are evident in his poetry. With Penny’s poetry, we can create a more complete environmental history of Fort Scott by understanding how Fort Scott residents related to the land around them.

Dans le grand ensemble géographique de l’Empire romain, la région du delta du Rhin demeurait une zone marginale, aux frontières du monde connu : son environnement naturel deltaïque et son éloignement du centre méditerranéen attisaient son caractère sauvage et méconnu. Néanmoins, pendant plus de quatre siècles, la région des embouchures rhénanes fut incluse dans le vaste empire de Rome, hôte d’une occupation humaine dynamique. L’historien s’intéressant au delta du Rhin à l’époque romaine sera toutefois rapidement confronté à des sources classiques insuffisantes, subjectives, généralement l’œuvre de témoins indirects. Plusieurs chercheurs choisissent ainsi de se tourner vers un matériel archéologique jugé plus fiable, plus au diapason des réalités régionales. Or, le décalage entre témoignages littéraires et données matérielles, loin d’entraîner un désaveu des auteurs anciens, offre un angle d’approche prometteur puisque, en vérité, les représentations véhiculées dans les sources littéraires anciennes constituent non pas un reflet réaliste de la situation régionale, mais bien un reflet réaliste des représentations que se faisait Rome de la situation régionale. La position périphérique du delta du Rhin, loin du centre méditerranéen, aux limites de l’œkoumène, participa ainsi à la construction dans la société gréco-romaine d’une image déformée de la région, une image qui exacerbait l’hostilité de l’environnement naturel, qui exagérait l’austérité de l’occupation humaine, qui surestimait l’assujettissement des hommes aux contraintes du milieu. Cette étude montre ainsi que les représentations romaines de l’environnement naturel deltaïque ont influencé la nature de l’occupation régionale, la vision romaine des populations locales ainsi que les interactions des hommes avec un milieu naturel caractérisé à la fois par sa situation deltaïque et frontalière. Elle exploite de façon novatrice le concept de représentations et crée un dialogue fécond entre sources historiques et données paléoenvironnementales / Among the Roman Empire’s great geographical reach, the Rhine delta area remained a marginal zone, at the frontier of the known world: its deltaic natural environment and its remoteness from the Mediterranean center emphasized its savage and obscure character. Nevertheless, during more than four centuries, the Rhine delta area was included in the vast Roman Empire, host of a dynamic human occupation. An historian interested by the Rhine delta area during the Roman era will, however, rapidly be confronted by insufficient and subjective classical sources which are generally the work of indirect witnesses. Many researchers choose therefore to turn themselves toward archaeological material considered as more reliable, a more accurate depiction of regional realities. Yet, discrepancies between literary testimonies and material data, far from resulting in the rejection of ancient authors, offer a promising approach angle because, in truth, representations conveyed by ancient literary sources do not constitute a realistic reflection of the regional situation but do constitute a realistic reflection of Rome’s representations of the regional situation. The Rhine delta’s peripheral position, far from the Mediterranean center, at the limit of the oikoumene, contributed to the construction of a deformed image of the region within Greco-Roman society, an image which exacerbated the natural environment’s hostility, which exaggerated the human occupation’s austerity, which overestimated the subjection of men to the area’s constraints. This study thus demonstrates that Roman representations of the natural deltaic environment did influence the regional occupation’s nature, the Roman vision of local populations as well as the interactions of men with a natural environment characterized by both its deltaic and frontier situation. The study innovates in its use of the concept of representations and creates a fertile dialogue between historic sources and paleoenvironmental data