Making the west malleable : coal, geohistory, and western expansion, 1800-1920

dc.contributor.advisorChairperson, Graduate Committee: Michael Reidyen
dc.contributor.authorZizzamia, Daniel Francisen
dc.coverage.spatialWest (U.S.)en
dc.date.accessioned2016-01-03T17:03:31Z
dc.date.available2016-01-03T17:03:31Z
dc.date.issued2015en
dc.description.abstractHistorians have long understood the West as a region shaped by aridity. Yet by analyzing scientific imaginations as they interacted with the materiality of western landscapes, this dissertation argues that the history of the American West was equally influenced by the discovery of the watery deep past of its paleo-landscapes. The physical geography and remnant resources generated through geologic time in the American West decisively influenced western settlement and the advancement of American science in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Through government reports, scientists breathed new life into the ancient denizens and environments of the West. Where others saw an eternal and timeless desert, many scientists saw a plastic and ever-evolving environment. Boosters absorbed the authority of their science to lend credence to visions of a plastic West that would once again become a verdant paradise. Imagined vibrant paleo-environments portrayed once-and-future fertile landscapes that overrode the dominant perception of the American West as arid and hostile to life. With the power granted by coal paired with new technologies, and the Eden-like scientific visions of a former fertile West, vast human-induced climatological changes became an empowering possibility to a nation driven to settle the West. A "paleo-restorative dream" emerged in which the West--by the agency of humans--would return to ancient Edenic landscapes. Indeed, the geoengineering that pervades contemporary discussions concerning climate change and drives hopes to terraform Mars had their origins in the nineteenth century drive to recreate the American frontier.en
dc.identifier.urihttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/9089en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherMontana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Scienceen
dc.rights.holderCopyright 2015 by Daniel Francis Zizzamia.en
dc.subject.lcshCoalen
dc.subject.lcshGeologyen
dc.subject.lcshHistoryen
dc.subject.lcshMigration, Internalen
dc.titleMaking the west malleable : coal, geohistory, and western expansion, 1800-1920en
dc.typeDissertationen
mus.relation.departmentHistory & Philosophy.en_US
thesis.catalog.ckey2761354en
thesis.degree.committeemembersMembers, Graduate Committee: Tim LeCain; Robert Rydell; Brett Walker; Mark Fiege.en
thesis.degree.departmentHistory & Philosophy.en
thesis.degree.genreDissertationen
thesis.degree.namePhDen
thesis.format.extentfirstpage1en
thesis.format.extentlastpage723en

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