John Wesley Powell and the Mapping of the Colorado Plateau, 1869 –1879: Survey Science, Geographical Solutions, and the Economy of Environmental Values

Abstract

In 1869, John Wesley Powell led an expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers through the Grand Canyon, the last “great blank space” on the map of the continental U.S. In the work of filling in the continental map, Powell and others in an emerging community of government scientists in Washington anticipated a new set of concerns over productivity, order, and the limits of natural resources—including land itself—in the arid lands of the West. This article examines the historical geographical processes through which Powell’s maps of an unexplored region gave way, in roughly a decade, to his maps of proper land use, epitomized by his 1878 Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, which is still conventionally recognized as a foundational piece in American environmental thought. Focusing on the work of the Powell Survey (1869 – 1879), as well as Powell’s lesser–known work as a special commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1873 – 1874), the article situates the maps, censuses, and expert advice produced during Powell’s early career as part of a wider traffic of knowledge linking Washington to the western territories. The article develops a broadly materialist geographical analysis to explore how the production of knowledge about people and place on the Colorado Plateau articulated with the westward geographical expansion of systems of value and signification. It thus raises questions about the relations between environmental values, on the one hand, and the scientific and political work of valuing environments, on the other.

Retrospective on Nature–Society Geography: Tracing Trajectories (1911–2010) and Reflecting on Translations

“…Works range from those in a special forum on the theme of "Science, Policy, and Ethics" (e.g., Harman, Harrington, and Cerveny 1998;Proctor 1998a;Shrader-Frechette 1998) to the politics, history, and philosophy of science related to global warming (Demeritt 2001a; see also Demeritt 2001b;Schneider 2001). Case-study examinations have focused on science and environmental ideas in Russia and the Soviet Union (Bassin 1992 (Kirsch 2002), and European colonial encounters and early scientific ideas of climate, botany, plant breeding, and fire management (Butzer 1992a;Galloway 1996;Richardson 1996;Endfield and Nash 2002).…”

“…The central role of the concept of the "agency of nature" offers linkages to the former, whereas sustained focus on political and social power is a tie to the latter. Vibrant exchange is promised, for example, in historically framed works that are broadly engaged with science, technology, and the past and present interplay of diverse environmental knowledge systems (B. L. Turner, Kates, and Meyers 1994;Galloway 1996;Richardson 1996;Endfield and Nash 2002;Kirsch 2002;Etter, McAlpine, and Possingham 2008).…”

Yellowstone as “Landscape Idea”: Thomas Moran and the Pictorial Practices of Gilded-Age Western Exploration

“…2 Not merely an abstract or epiphenomenal idea or simply a genre of painting, the landscape idea consists of a range of visual and textual discourses and practices that have understood and represented the "land" both as a prospect invested with use-and exchange-value and as a powerful social and cultural symbol (Cosgrove 1998(Cosgrove [1984; Daniels and Cosgrove 1988). Often drawing on specific scientific and pictorial conventions and their corresponding technologies and techniques of observation (Berger 1972;Crary 1990;Kirsch 1997;Marx 1988;Naef 1975;Stokes 1989), the landscape idea has articulated and naturalized a variety of cultural identities predicated on social class, gender, race, religion, region, and nation (Barrell 1980;Boime 1991;Cosgrove 1998Cosgrove [1984; Daniels 1993Daniels ,1989Green 1990;Gruffudd 1994Gruffudd ,1995Jackson 1979;P. Jackson 1992;John 2001John , 2003Matless 1995;Mitchell 1996;Nash 1994;Norwood and Monk 1987;Pratt 1992;Riley 1998;Rose 1992Rose , 1995.'…”

“…The emerging science of geology was especially important in the professionalization of exploration of the American West during the Gilded Age (Cassidy 2000;Kirsch 2002). Geology offered explorers a set of epistemological devices that would translate parochial and self-interested ambitions and practices into subjects of national interest (Nelson 1998); it provided the principal driving rationale and the basic rules or criteria for determining the allocation of public financial resources to western exploration (Braun 2000;Cassidy 2000); and it melded the individual ambitions and accomplishments of the explorers with universalizing discourses of scientific and national political and economic development (Nelson 1998).…”

Geomorphology and American dams: The scientific, social, and economic context

“…John Wesley Powell, revered in geography and geology as a scientific pioneer in matters pertaining to rivers and water resources, served two perspectives on western water resources during his tenure as head of the U.S. Geological Survey (Kirsch, 2002). His exploration, mapping, and research opened Colorado River system to the reigning governmental values of the late 1800s: unregulated economic development with control of the resources by engineering structures.…”