Nature's Crossroads: The Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota

by George Vrtis (Editor), Chris Wells (Editor)

Overview

Minnesota’s Twin Cities have long been powerful engines of change. From their origins in the early nineteenth century, the Twin Cities helped drive the dispossession of the region’s Native American peoples, turned their riverfronts into bustling industrial and commercial centers, spread streets and homes outward to the horizon, and reached well beyond their urban confines, setting in motion the environmental transformation of distant hinterlands. As these processes unfolded, residents inscribed their culture into the landscape, complete with all its tensions, disagreements, contradictions, prejudices, and social inequalities. These stories lie at the heart of Nature’s Crossroads. The book features an interdisciplinary team of distinguished scholars who aim to open new conversations about the environmental history of the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822947387
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	01/10/2023
Series:	Pittsburgh Hist Urban Environ
Pages:	420
Sales rank:	546,927
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

George Vrtis is an environmental historian and professor of history and environmental studies at Carleton College. He is the coeditor of Mining North America: An Environmental History since 1522. His research interests include mining and resource use, urban environments, and protected areas and wilderness.

Chris Wells is an environmental historian and professor of environmental studies at Macalester College. His is the author of Car Country: An Environmental History and Environmental Justice in Postwar America: A Documentary Reader. His research focuses on the ways that technology—and especially technological systems—have reshaped the American environment, mediating and structuring people’s relationships with the natural world.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Unearthing Nature's Crossroads George Vrtis Christopher W. Wells 3

Part I The Dynamics of Environmental Change: Cities, Commodities, Hinterlands

1 A Tale of Two Waterfronts: Commerce, Industry, and the Environmental Transformation of Minnesota's Twin Cities Christopher W. Wells George Vrtis 19

2 Down to the Farm: Wheat Ecology and International Markets in Minnesota, 1850-1900 Thomas Finger 41

3 Competing Hinterlands: Saint Paul, Madison, and the Landscape of Burnett County, Wisconsin David A. Lanegran 61

4 Upstream, Downstream: The Flooding of Anishinaabe Lands by Upper Mississippi Dams Michael D. McNally 80

5 Making Stumps and Fields: Working Environments in the Woods and on the Cutover, 1890s-1930s Kevin C. Brown 98

6 "Follow the Arrows to the Arrowhead": The Environment of Tourism in the Interwar Years Aaron Shapiro 113

Part II The Twin Cities and the Built Environment

7 Fountains of Life and Death: A History of the Minneapolis and Saint Paul Water Supply Systems John O. Anfinson 131

8 Urban Environmental History and Loring Park: How Cultural Views of Nature Influenced Recreational Design Karen Wellner 148

9 "Awheel from Chicago to the Twin Cities": Legacies of Turn-of-the-Century Bicycle Paths in Minneapolis and Saint Paul James Longhurst 163

10 The Suburb of Minneapolis: Defining the City's "Urban" Form Robert S. Thompson 179

11 The Campus as Watershed: Urban Sustainability and the Pedagogy of Place Joseph Underhill 195

Part III Environmental Politics, Thought, and Justice

12 Monumental Encounters: The Politics of History, Conservation, and the Reconstruction of Grand Portage, 1922-1958 Chantal Norrgard 213

13 Pittsburgh's Colony in Saint Paul's Hinterland: Tensions over Environmentaiism in Northeastern Minnesota's Iron Range Jeffrey T. Manuel 229

14 A House Divided: The Minnesota Experimental City and Competing Narratives of Conservation Todd A. Wildermuth 245

15 Dissecting a Nation-Leading Legacy: The Minnesota Acid Rain Story Gregory C. Pratt 259

16 The Urban Roots of Militant Indian Protest: AIM's Origins in the Twin Cities, 1968-1973 William C. Barnett 274

17 Radioactive Waste, Public Debate, and Environmental Justice at Prairie Island James W. Feldman 290

Afterword: Minnesota's Many Intersecting Crossroads Kathleen A.Brosnan 307

Notes 315

List of Contributors 383

Index 385

Editorial Reviews

Nature’s Crossroads is likely to become the definitive book on Minnesota’s environmental history. This engaging volume explains how the dynamic flow of resources, people, and ideas between the Twin Cities and their hinterlands shaped the state’s history. Nature’s Crossroads will appeal not only to those who love Minnesota but to environmental historians, geographers, rural sociologists, urban planners, and others interested in understanding the complexity of seemingly simple midwestern landscapes.” —Sarah Mittlefehldt, Northern Michigan University

“Here are compelling stories about the changing human communities of the Twin Cities and how they shaped and were shaped by their environments, from riverfronts to hinterlands. Topics range from water, energy, and acid rain to imagined eco-cities, bicycle paths, suburban sprawl, historic preservation, and, yes, lakes. Though the reader can move among chapters in any order, Vrtis and Wells provide structure and themes, including varied environmentalisms, Indigenous resistance, and environmental justice.” —Kathryn Morse, Middlebury College

From the Publisher