The story of water development is not only an important volume in the environmental journal of America, but also a small-scale version of the history of the United States itself. Take away the manipulation of rivers, and someone would have to rewrite the books about this nation. Take away the canals, dams and ditches, and the westward movement---that bustling, bloody, promising pilgrimage that continues even today---would be more like the rush to Siberia. The story of what we did to rivers is the story of migration, of meeting the growing nation's needs, of ingenuity in squeezing wealth from the land, of technology, of politics, of government growth, of disregard for the natural world, and of homogenization on the land-giving everyplace the promises and the looks of anyplace else.

--- Tim Palmer, from Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement, p. 13

READINGS

• Carlisle, Ronald. Canals and American Cities.
• Kane, Lucile. Falls of St. Anthony.
• McCullough, David. The Johnstown Flood.
• McPhee, John. The Control of Nature.
• Tarr, Joel. The Search for the Ultimate Sink.
• White, Richard. The Organic Machine.
• Steinberg, Theodore. Nature Incorporated.

• Mount, Jeffrey F. California Rivers and Streams.

Week 1:   Introduction
(Sept. 7th)

Week 2:   Rivers as Systems
(Sept. 14th)
*Michael J. Caduto, Pond and Brook, Chap. 1 and 2
*Jeffrey F. Mount, California Rivers and Streams, Chap. 1
Richard White, The Organic Machine, Chap. 1

Suggested:
W. K. Hamblin, The Earth's Dynamic Systems
Ann Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape

Week 3:   Rivers for Transportation
(Sept. 21th)
*Robert Gordon and Patrick Malone, The Texture of Industry, pp. 117-120, 132-147
Ronald Carlisle, ed., Canals and American Cities, pp. 5-13, 103-106, 47-60, 77-86, 31-46, 61-76
Richard White, Organic Machine, Chap. 2
*Joseph Mitchell, "The Mohawks in High Steel," in Up in the Old Hotel

Suggested:
*George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution
*Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
Patrick Malone and Michael Raber, Archaeological Monitoring Report Reconstruction of Main Street and Market Square Woonsocket, RI
Ronald Shaw, Canals for a Nation
Louis Hunter, Steamboats on Western Rivers
Walter C. Kidney, The Three Rivers
Francine Lelievre, Montreal, by Bridge and Crossing
Stanley Triggs et al., Victoria Bridge

Week 4:   Rivers as Sources of Power - Part I
(Sept. 28th)
*Gordon and Malone, The Texture of Industry, pp. 42-43, 46-50, 60-63, 87-108, 307-312
*Gary Kulik, "Dams, Fish, and Farmers," in Herbert Gutman and Donald Bell, The New England Working Class and the New Labor History
Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, Intro, Chaps. 1-6

Suggested:
*Patrick Malone, Canals and Industry
David H. Getches, Water Law Jan G. Laitos and Joseph P. Tomain, Energy and Natural Resources Law
Cynthia J. Shelton, The Mills of Manayunk
Edwin T. Layton, From Rule of Thumb to Scientific Engineering
Louis Hunter, Waterpower
Terry Reynolds, Stronger Than a Hundred Men

Week 5:   Rivers as Sources of Power - Part II
(Oct. 5th)
Lucile Kane, Falls of St. Anthony
Ronald Carlisle, Canals and American Cities, pp. 15-30

Suggested:
Donald C. Jackson, Great American Bridges and Dams
Judith McGaw, Most Wonderful Machine
Blake McKelvey, Rochester the Water-Power City

MID-SEMESTER PAPER DUE AT 6th CLASS MEETING

Week 6:   Walking Tour of Providence Riverfront:
Recreational and Aesthetic Values of Urban Rivers
(Oct. 12th)
*Charles Little, Greenways for America, Ch. 4
*Richard Greenwood, "A Mechanic in the Garden: Landscape Design in Industrial Rhode Island," IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, Vol. 24, No.1 (1998)
*Patrick M. Malone and Charles A. Parrott, "Greenways in the Industrial City: Parks and Promenades along the Lowell Canals," IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1998)
**RIDEM "Showcase Community Application" (also available on web at http://www.dem.state.ri.us/dem_wast...cleanup/brownfields/showcaseapp.htm)

Suggested:
*Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System
W. M. Woodward and E. F. Sanderson, Providence
John Cady, The Civic and Architectural Development of Providence, 1636-1950
Michael Holleran, "Filling the Providence Cove," Rhode Island History (August, 1990), pp. 65-85
Max Hall, The Charles

Week 7:   Water and Wastes - Part I
(Oct. 19th)
Joel Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink, 1-76, 103-217
Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, Ch. 7

Suggested:
Joel Tarr and Gabriel Dupuy, eds., Technology and the Rise of the Networked City in Europe and America
Fern Nesson, Great Waters
Jonathan French, ed., Boston's Water Resource Development
Jane M. Gibson, The Fairmount Waterworks
Blake Nelson, Water for the Cities

Week 8:   Water and Wastes - Part II
(Oct. 26th)
Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink, pp. 335-411
*Herman Melville, "The Tartarus of Maids" in Herman Melville's Complete Stories
**Edward Muller, "The Legacy of Industrial Cities," Pittsburgh History (Summer, 1989)

Suggested:
**Richmond Manufacturing Co. vs. Atlantic DeLaine Co., Supreme Court, RI. 1871
Robert Sullivan, The Meadowlands
David Hanson, ed. Waste Land: Meditations on a Ravaged Landscape
Arthur L. Littleworth and Eric L. Garner, California Water
Margaret L. Davis, Rivers in the Desert

Week 9:   Perceptions of Nature: The Illusion of Control
(Nov. 2nd)
John McPhee, The Control of Nature, 2-92 and 182-272
*Jeffrey F. Mount, California Rivers and Streams, Chap. 15
Richard White, The Organic Machine, Chaps. 3-4

Suggested:
John M. Barry, Rising Tide
Martin Reuss, Designing the Bayous: The Control of Water in the Atchafalaya Basin:1800-1995
Stanley A. Changnon, The Great Flood of 1993

Week 10:   Disasters
(Nov. 9th)
David McCullough, In-class video: "The Johnstown Flood"

Suggested:
John M. Barry, Rising Tide
Stanley A. Changnon, The Great Flood of 1993

EVENING FILM:
Pare Lorentz, "The River" (Time and Place to be Announced)

Week 11:   Waterfront Redevelopment
(Nov. 16th)
**Douglas M. Wrenn, Urban Waterfront Development, pp. 2-37
**Chester E. Smolski, "Waterfronts as a Key to City Center Redevelopment" Rhode Island History (Aug., 1990)

Suggested:
William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement
Roy Mann, Rivers in the City

Week 12:   Project Presentations in Class
(Nov. 30th)

Week 13:   Conclusion
(Dec. 7th)