| dc.description.abstract | “Soil, Water, and the State” examines the history of soil and water conservation in the United States since 1920 through the lens of the conservation-industrial complex: a vast network of parties who shared economic, political, and (in some cases) moral interests in promoting and implementing soil and water conservation. During the twentieth century, the network’s ranks included government agencies, conservation professionals, land grant universities, farmers, conservation districts, politicians, and the farm-equipment and agrochemical industries. This dissertation argues that the conservation-industrial complex represented a powerful and resilient alliance that adapted to changing national priorities as well as to specific environmental conditions. These adaptations lent the complex a vitality that propelled the ideas, policies, and practices of utilitarian conservation, and the relationships of an associative state, throughout the twentieth century. Much of the appeal of the conservation-industrial complex stemmed from its decentralized, associative character. Soil and water conservation depended largely on the increased authorities of the federal government, particularly within the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Yet, by filtering its powers through a federal-state-local framework, the USDA created an “associative state” that guarded against backlash from the antistatism endemic to American political culture. The conservation-industrial complex also enjoyed support from the private sector, specifically from industrial manufacturers whose interests were advanced by federal conservation programs. “Soil, Water, and the State” studies conservation from both cultural and material perspectives. Part I traces the evolving discourse of soil and water conservation during the twentieth century as a window into the changing meanings and policies of conservation at the national level. A key conclusion from these chapters is that, as farmers adopted the capital- and input-intensive methods of industrialized agriculture, conservation discourse encouraged them to see economic production and environmental protection as compatible, and even mutually constructive. Part II explores how leaders in the conservation-industrial complex implemented their programs and practices on the ground, both nationwide and in the Upper and Lower Mississippi River Valley, by enlisting technology, farmers, and politics. The technological, social, and political relationships within the conservation-industrial complex were mediated by various geological, climatic, biological, and hydrologic forces of the natural world. This project therefore demonstrates the centrality of the natural world to the broader contours of US history. | |
