Sanitizing History: Environmental Cleanup and Historic Preservation in U.S. West Mining Communities
| dc.contributor.advisor | Weisiger, Marsha | |
| dc.contributor.author | Frank, Nichelle | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-09-24T17:12:47Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-09-24T17:12:47Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-09-24 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Residents in mining towns of the U.S. West face a troubling quandary in their attempts to preserve historical evidence of their town’s industrial past, because that evidence threatens their health. The 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, or “Superfund”) authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up toxic sites, but these sites are often where the most marginalized residents have lived and are sometimes the only evidence of those residents. How have mining communities preserved the past while ensuring the community’s health and safety? My dissertation, “Sanitizing History: Historic Preservation and Environmentalism in U.S. West Mining Communities,” is the first book-length study that weaves together the histories of historic preservation and environmentalism to demonstrate that the answer lies with interagency cooperation and site-specific solutions. Focusing on Butte, Montana; Globe, Arizona; and Leadville, Colorado, my study relies on a wide array of source material, including archival collections and site visits. Chapter Two shows how some narratives about mining towns, rather than boosting the towns, derided them for their physical and moral uncleanliness. Chapter Three traces Progressive Era urban reform while Chapter Four documents infrastructure modernization from the 1920s to 1940s and the resulting destruction of historical resources related to marginalized populations. Chapter Five explores redevelopment in the early postwar years. Chapter Six demonstrates how historic preservation and environmental policies coalesced in the 1960s, and Chapter Seven reveals that previously marginalized residents leveraged 1980s environmental laws to gain cleanup of mining landscapes. By employing lenses of intersectionality and agency, my project concludes that, in the process of asserting their right to bodily health and safety, mining town residents have perpetuated a pattern of forgetting that allowed cultural ills to continue. My work thus prompts scholars, activists, and members of the general public to search for policies that preserve painful pasts while allowing for healing. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25614 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | environmental history | en_US |
| dc.subject | environmental justice | en_US |
| dc.subject | historic preservation | en_US |
| dc.subject | mining history | en_US |
| dc.subject | Superfund | en_US |
| dc.subject | U.S. West | en_US |
| dc.title | Sanitizing History: Environmental Cleanup and Historic Preservation in U.S. West Mining Communities | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of History | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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