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Greening the AP U.S. History Course
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by Tim Lehman
Rocky Mountain College
Billings, Montana
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Considering the Outside World
It might seem at first glance that incorporating environmental history into an AP U.S. History course is like stuffing one more item into an already overstuffed suitcase. It may even seem like something that doesn't quite belong. But what famed American naturalist and conservationist John Muir said about nature -- "Everything is hitched to everything else in the universe" -- applies equally to history. Environmental history, then, is not one more bulky item to stuff into the suitcase, but a better way to pack what you already have.
I often begin my U.S. History survey courses by asking students to think not about the text in front of them but about the environment outside. Whether it is buffalo, cows, or McDonald's; prairie, field, or concrete, the view is part of an environmental tale described by the text in front of them. What species of plants or animals are new to this landscape? What has disappeared? Where did the materials for the sidewalks, highways, skyscrapers, or forests come from? What local, regional, and global networks of food, energy, and other resources support the place where we live? Has it always been so? Recently I have added another question: Do these connections with our environment make us more or less vulnerable to terrorist attack?
Nature Bites Back
Textbooks often begin with a geographical survey of North America, which then rests as a static and passive backdrop for the human drama that unfolds. The central insight into environmental history is that nature is neither static nor passive, that nature itself changes over time and that nature interacts with human agency to alter, constrain, or advance human possibilities. If social history has taught us to conceive of history "from the bottom up," environmental history thinks of history "from the ground up." All of our attempts to remake nature end up ultimately, inevitably, and ironically with nature making us. How this works out is the "stuff" inside any U.S. history course, packaged with this idea in mind.
Most texts now include some notion of the "Columbian Exchange" as part of the discovery and exploration of America. An environmental perspective on this era is not an afterthought, but an integral part of any explanation of crucial events. Columbus and his followers initiated an exchange of animals, plants, and microbes that profoundly shaped the possibilities for American development. Why were Native Americans so vulnerable to European diseases? How did "virgin soil" epidemics kill Aztecs and clear land for the Puritans? How did Indian agriculture blend with European (and African) agriculture to create a "new world" of vastly increased food production?
The best background reading for those matters is Alfred W. Crosby's Biological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 for a global view and William Cronon's Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England for a New England regional perspective. My students struggle to read more than a chapter or two of each, but I find great lecture material in both.
Students and teachers alike will find much value in a National Humanities Center Web site, "Nature Transformed: The Environment in American History," which offers essays by leading scholars. In addition, the site lists bibliographies and online resources that explore not only the Columbian Exchange but also such diverse topics as the near extermination of the buffalo, wild and rural land fires, the origins of the wilderness movement, aridity in the West, Rachel Carson and the modern environmental movement, road and highway construction, and even the environmental impact of the Civil War. I sometimes use this site as a starting point for a mini-research assignment on one aspect of early American environmental change -- a disease, plant, or animal, and its effect on one particular place. I also use this as an opportunity to have students evaluate Web sites.
 Nature Transformed: The Environment in American History
A final point is that this sort of environmental history is transnational in scope, whether one treats only the colonial period or follows up a story -- the spread of exotic plants, for instance -- into the present.
The Politics of Nature
Perhaps the most obvious point of contact between the traditional U.S. history survey and environmental history is the politics of environmental regulation during the 20th century. The Progressive conservation movement, New Deal responses to the Dust Bowl, and the modern environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s are all familiar staples of the AP U.S. History course. I approach those environmental reforms not simply as one more aspect of reform (another bulky item in the overstuffed suitcase), but as representatives of the very core ideas of 20th century liberalism -- the positive use of government, faith in scientific expertise to solve social problems, federal control of public resources for democratic purposes, the growth of presidential power, the increasing importance of leisure time and lifestyle amenities such as clean air or outdoor recreation, and even the participation of women in popular reform movements.
A great starting point, for both classroom use and student research, is the Library of Congress's "The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920." The site contains hundreds of documents and images, all organized around a detailed time line that offers links to specific resources. It includes questions for analysis, teaching ideas, and suggestions for further research, all of which make it a natural fit for classroom use. You will find materials here for practice in document-based questions, image interpretation, and student research. For instance, students can see the romantic and monumental paintings of Western places by Albert Bierstadt or Thomas Moran, examine those paintings in their specific context, contemplate their meaning in the formation of American character, and connect them to conservation ideology.
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
The Consumption of Nature
The rise of consumer culture is a major theme of 20th century American life, and once again environmental history provides a superb organizing principle for course materials. In recent years, environmental historians have studied extensively and added complexity to familiar topics such as urbanization, public health, suburbanization, automobiles, highways, and outdoor recreation. Rats in New York City, the development of sewer systems, the decline of the inner city and the spread of suburbia, the growth of interstate highways and car culture -- the possibilities for class discussion or student research are vast.
The indispensable starting point here is Ted Steinberg's Down To Earth: Nature's Role in American History, which is a treasure trove of nuggets for lectures or can be easily excerpted for student reading and research. My students have also always responded well to Rachel Carson. I assign a few chapters from Silent Spring, which they find accessible and provocative. I combine that reading with the PBS American Experience documentary on Carson, which is rich in images of DDT being sprayed on farms and suburbs, even swimming pools, and has great interviews with scientists and friends of Carson.
Again, I ask students to trace one aspect of the controversy -- pesticide use in World War II, malaria suppression, the rise of ecological thought, feminism, the authority of science, industrial agriculture -- and report back to class. Students always respond with lively debate, and this year I plan to ask them to debate whether African nations should be allowed to use DDT in their fight against malaria. This pits public health against strict ecology and Third World needs against First World concerns, in a way that complicates students' (and my own) preconceived notions.
Tim Lehman (Ph.D., University of North Carolina) is a professor of history at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, and is the author of Public Values, Private Lands: Farmland Preservation Policy, 1933-1985. He also taught U.S. history for six years at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham. He is a frequent reviewer of AP U.S. History teaching resources for AP Central.
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