As our working group discusses the role that public historians have to play in the
broader conversations of environmental sustainability, I look forward to learning about the
many ways that my colleagues have harnessed the humanity of their resources and the
environmental realities of their sites to educate visitors and promote a sense of place. I know
that environmental historians like Bill Cronon have worked for decades to collapse the divide
between humans and nature, and I believe that environmental history is our field’s strongest
toolkit to examine the ways that the environment has changed, how societies have used
resources, and how cultural ideas about the environment have developed.
As a historian of 19th century environments, the landscapes that I read about no longer
exist. The trees today are often different, the people are different, the dirt is different, the
animals are different, the river is different, and the agriculture is different. In short, history has
happened in the Arkansas River Valley and at Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, and it has not
always been from sustainable practices.
My days as a self-identified public historian usually occur in one of two places: the
visitor center of some western national park dressed in the grey-green uniform of an NPS park
ranger or in an archive, transcribing discussions between Cherokee chiefs and US officials about
ideal farm lands in Arkansas Territory. The contrasting messages expressed by the NPS and my
enterprising historical sources are perhaps painfully familiar to my colleagues.
In the summer, I introduce audiences to the complex interactions of plants, animals, and
even park visitors. The caves, sand dunes, streams and mountains are “value statements about
what we have decided we must set aside to protect,” In the off-months, I read letters and
newspaper articles in which Cherokee and white farmers debate who will be the best at
exploiting an alluvial landscape for its resources. Sustainability, as an idea or an action, does not
appear in my historical sources.
I offer up my own experience as an environmental educator and an environmental
historian due to the all-too-common separation between present-day sustainability messages
and the poor morality tales of historical land-use. For every public history site that can teach
stories of experimental farming, local food production, seasonal agricultural adaptations,
government sustainability programs, and landscape conservation, two other sites tell stories of
erosion, soil depletion, water contamination, and clear-cutting. Still more sites have
environmental contexts but the interpretation finds greater purchase in social history, labor
relationships, or slavery. What we as public historians are left with are historical resources that
do not necessarily provide solutions to present day sustainability and environmental issues.
However, public historians, using the toolkit of environmental historians regarding
cultural ideas about the environment, can contextualize and historicize even the most
controversial of environmental issues today. My research in the Arkansas River Valley suggests
that we (public) historians have seen environmental discussions before. By 1817, Cherokee
migrants west of the Mississippi, in agreement with the federal government, declared that they
were the culture best suited for the mountains of the region because they were gifted hunters
who could collect 20,000 hides a year. Within five years, Cherokee chiefs had convinced the
U.S. government that they were the best suited group in the region because they were the best
farmers. Their farming skills showed that they were civilized, more so than the slovenly white
settlers in the region, and travelers regaled readers with depictions of Cherokees’ slaveenhanced
farms. Cherokees had completely shifted their environmental discourse and
successfully held the attention of the federal government. The Cherokee Nation’s leaders soon
contested survey reports about their western boundary and the exact acreage of their territory.
They even presented themselves as knowledgeable sources for American scientific
explorations, despite having only arrived recently. The Cherokee nation waged a decade-long,
dynamic discourse with the federal government about sovereignty using the environment as a
medium for negotiation.
This historical episode of environmental negotiation between an Indian nation and
government officials reveals levels of discourse and knowledge that we have recently seen
replicated in North Dakota. American science of climate change; discussions between private
citizens and federal agencies; cultural depictions of water “protectors;” religious proclamations
over sacred land; and discussions about treaty rights and Native sovereignty have converged at
the Standing Rock Sioux protests. I present this modern day example to demonstrate that the
historical environmental discourse has many parallels in the present, whether in content or in
layers of complexity. Environmental Public History, then, does not solely need to reflect
sustainable practices but can also give tools for deconstructing conversations about
sustainability.
My example is largely meant to highlight the Public History subfield of historic site
interpretation. The example also speaks to the need to increase historical science and
technology literacy among public historians. In this case, the material culture of survey
equipment, naturalists’ collections, weather gauges and farm implements suddenly become the
symbols of larger conversations about healthy and ideal landscapes, agricultural promise, and
sovereignty. Additionally, archivists who become familiar with the environmental jargon of
various periods or become attuned to discussions about landscapes may highlight those themes
in any indexes. I trust my colleagues to highlight the additional ways in which environmental
change requires a preservation language more attuned to adaptive re-use rehabilitation than
preservation or restoration.
As public historians, we are uniquely situated in the larger community of sustainability
advocates. In our environmental framework, people are at the center and the environment
itself is in a constant state of change. My own subjective experience as a participant and a
teacher of environment education suggests that public historians are critical in contextualizing
both environmental change and human actors to the sustainability discourse. Were we to
present the diaries of historical characters or perused the historical photographs, we could
interpret for our visitors that the present day conversations between private industries, cultural
leaders, scientists, government officials, and families are only the latest in the continual
dialogue about environmental resources and human survival. Any solutions that DO arise over
sustainability will have to account for culture and environmental dynamism, and our approach
can provide the “literacy” to think through these vital discussions.
Cane West
Doctoral Student in American History—University of South Carolina
National Park Service ranger—Great Sand Dunes NP, Timpanogos Cave NM, Rock Creek Park