Beyond nature's housekeepers : American women in environmental history

336 Pages·2012·4.741 MB·English

by  Nancy C. Unger

Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers
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Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers
AMERICAN WOMEN IN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
Nancy C. Unger

3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Unger, Nancy C.
Beyond nature’s housekeepers : American women in environmental history / Nancy C. Unger.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-973506-8 (hardcover : acid-free paper)—ISBN 978-0-19-973507-5 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
1. Women and the environment—United States—History. 2. Sex role—United States—History.
3. Nature—Eff ect of human beings on—United States—History. 4. Human ecology—United States—History.
5. Conservation of natural resources—United States—History. 6. Environmentalism—United States—History.
7. United States—Environmental conditions—History. 8. United States—Social conditions. I. Title.
GF13.3.U6U54 2012
304.2082(cid:2)0973—dc23 2012008759
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my children, Travis Whitebread and Megan Unger,
my joy and inspiration
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Contents

Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Sex, Sexuality, and Gender as Useful Categories in Environmental History 3
1. Gendered Changes to the Land in Pre-Columbian and Colonial America 13
2. Th e North and the South fr om Revolution to Civil War 31
3. Th e Frontier Environment as Test of Prescribed Gender Spheres 49
4. Nature’s Housekeepers: Progressive-Era Women as Midwives to the
Conservation Movement and Environmental Consciousness 7 5
5. Reasserting Female Authority: Women and the Environment
fr om the 1920s through World War II 105
6. Middle-Class White Women in the Cold War 137
7. Women’s Alternative Environments: Fostering Gender Identity by
Striving to Remake the World 163
8. Th e Modern Environmental Justice Movement 187
Epilogue: Women, Gender, and Environment in the Twenty-First Century 2 15
Abbreviations 221
Notes 223
Bibliography 269
Index 305
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Illustrations

1.1 Florida’s Timucua tribe plant seeds 17
1.2 Overseer supervises slave women 26
1.3 Girl sweeps steps 28
2.1 Th ree ladies in wooded area 38
2.2 Women and children labor in fi elds 47
3.1 Travelers camp on the journey west 60
3.2 Nature’s housekeepers 66
3.3 Mother and daughter in fl ower garden 71
4.1 Two women in nature 78
4.2 Mountain goat hunter 80
4.3 Women pose with rifl es 82
4.4 Whittier School fi eld trip 94
4.5 Th e cruelties of fashion 9 6
4.6 John Muir ridiculed 99
4.7 World War I garden poster 103
5.1 Camp Fire Girls 112
5.2 Canoeing at Camp Moy Mo Da Yo 115
5.3 Girl on horseback 116
5.4 We Say What We Th ink Club 125
5.5 World War II Land Army poster 129
6.1 Postcard from LAND balloon release 138
6.2 Women picketing the White House 148
6.3 Another Mother for Peace logo 157
6.4 Women for a Peaceful Christmas button 158
6.5 Helen Hokinson for the New Yorker 160