Agriculture, Food, and the Environment
Kathleen A. Brosnan and Jacob Blackwell
Throughout history, food needs bonded humans to nature. The transition to agriculture constituted slow, but revolutionary ecological transformations. After 1500 ce, agricultural goods, as ...
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The American Antinuclear Movement
Paul Rubinson
Spanning countries across the globe, the antinuclear movement was the combined effort of millions of people to challenge the superpowers’ reliance on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. ...
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American Environmental Diplomacy
Kurk Dorsey
From its inception as a nation in 1789, the United States has engaged in an environmental diplomacy that has included attempts to gain control of resources, as well as formal diplomatic ...
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American Environmental Policy since 1964
Richard N. L. Andrews
Between 1964 and 2017, the United States adopted the concept of environmental policy as a new focus for a broad range of previously disparate policy issues affecting human interactions ...
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Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Movement
Matt Garcia
In September 1962, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) held its first convention in Fresno, California, initiating a multiracial movement that would result in the creation of ...
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Climate Change and the American City
Andrew Hurley
American cities developed under relatively quiescent climatic conditions. A gradual rise in average global temperatures during the 19th and 20th centuries had a negligible impact on how ...
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DDT and Pesticides
Frederick Rowe Davis
The history of DDT and pesticides in America is overshadowed by four broad myths. The first myth suggests that DDT was the first insecticide deployed widely by American farmers. The second ...
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Energy in American History
Aaron Sachs
Energy systems have played a significant role in U.S. history; some scholars claim that they have determined a number of other developments. From the colonial period to the present, ...
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Environmental and Conservation Movements in Metropolitan America
Robert R. Gioielli
By the late 19th century, American cities like Chicago and New York were marvels of the industrializing world. The shock urbanization of the previous quarter century, however, brought on a ...
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The Environment in the Atomic Age
Rachel Rothschild
The development of nuclear technology had a profound influence on the global environment following the Second World War, with ramifications for scientific research, the modern ...
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Epidemics in Indian Country
David S. Jones
Few developments in human history match the demographic consequences of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Between 1500 and 1900 the human populations of the Americas were ...
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Food and Agriculture in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Gabriella M. Petrick
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Please check back later for the full article.
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Forests and Logging in the United States
Erik Loomis
Humans have utilized American forests for a wide variety of uses from the pre-Columbian period to the present. Native Americans heavily shaped forests to serve their needs, helping to ...
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Infrastructure: Water and Sewers
Joel A. Tarr
Urban water supply and sewage disposal facilities are critical parts of the urban infrastructure. They have enabled cities and their metropolitan areas to function as centers of commerce, ...
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Latinx Environmentalism
Sara C. Fingal
Since the 1960s, Latinxs have played prominent roles in the environmental justice movement and in organizations that have defined their members as Hispanic or Latinx environmentalists. ...
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The National Parks
Donald Worster
The national parks of the United States have been one of the country’s most popular federal initiatives, and popular not only within the nation but across the globe. The first park was ...
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The Oil Industry
Christopher J. Castañeda
The modern oil industry began in 1859 with Edwin Drake’s discovery of oil at Titusville, Pennsylvania. Since then, this dynamic industry has experienced dramatic episodes of growth, ...
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Parks in Urban America
David Schuyler
The creation and evolution of urban parks is in some ways a familiar story, especially given the attention that Frederick Law Olmsted’s work has commanded since the early 1970s. Following ...
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Public Lands and Their Administration
Adam M. Sowards
For more than a century after the republic’s founding in the 1780s, American law reflected the ideal that the commons—the public domain—should be turned into private property. As Americans ...
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Regulating America’s Natural Environment
Bart Elmore
From the founding of the American republic through the 19th century, the nation’s environmental policy mostly centered on promoting American settlers’ conquest of the frontier. Early ...
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