Managing the Missouri: Federal water projects, the landscape, and the law

dc.contributor.advisor Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
dc.contributor.advisor Julie Courtwright
dc.contributor.author Howe, Maria
dc.contributor.department History
dc.date 2019-11-04T21:49:42.000
dc.date.accessioned 2020-06-30T03:18:38Z
dc.date.available 2020-06-30T03:18:38Z
dc.date.copyright Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 UTC 2019
dc.date.embargo 2021-07-24
dc.date.issued 2019-01-01
dc.description.abstract <p>During the twentieth century, the U.S. federal government became increasingly involved in managing the nation’s natural resources. Building off the legacy of internal improvements and public lands disposal in the nineteenth century, the Progressive Era marked a turning point with a national movement coalescing based on conservation, efficiency, and expertise. Over the following decades, the federal government’s intervention became highly organized, systemic, and technical. This dissertation assesses one aspect of this trend – federal water management. Literature on the subject has focused disproportionately on the arid West. This study, which looks at the Missouri River, helps pull the discourse toward a broader historiography.</p> <p>Specifically, this dissertation presents research on four federal water management schemes across the watershed, emphasizing the process of managing the Missouri at the grassroots level. Covering the geographical extent of the watershed, the varying physical regions, and the century, this analysis looks at: 1) an irrigation project authorized in 1906 on the Sun River, a tributary in Montana; 2) a drainage project authorized under the 1936 Flood Control Act on the Little Sioux River, a tributary in Iowa; 3) a failed campaign at mid-century to create a “valley authority” modeled off the Tennessee Valley Authority; and 4) a project authorized in 2000 on the Monarch Levee, located on the Missouri’s mainstem near St. Louis.</p> <p>Ultimately, this perspective reveals that transforming water systems to accommodate more intensive use involved imagining new communities that would support and pay for the project. Although federal agencies supplied critical infrastructure support, this task was accomplished primarily at the grassroots level. The process was long, not always democratic, and frequently contested in some way, whether in debates over how to allocate the costs locally, or how to prioritize competing uses. A key point of debate was how to draw boundaries – who would be included, who would be excluded. The Missouri’s resilience has repeatedly checked ideas about “management.” Yet due to the tremendous commitments involved, residents often became deeply connected to the river in unexpected ways, regardless of established political boundaries. Ultimately, these connections created a large degree of power at the local level.</p>
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier archive/lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/17467/
dc.identifier.articleid 8474
dc.identifier.contextkey 15681466
dc.identifier.s3bucket isulib-bepress-aws-west
dc.identifier.submissionpath etd/17467
dc.identifier.uri https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/handle/20.500.12876/31650
dc.language.iso en
dc.source.bitstream archive/lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/17467/Howe_iastate_0097E_18340.pdf|||Fri Jan 14 21:23:40 UTC 2022
dc.subject.disciplines History
dc.subject.disciplines United States History
dc.subject.disciplines Water Resource Management
dc.subject.keywords Federal Water Management
dc.subject.keywords Little Sioux River
dc.subject.keywords Missouri River
dc.subject.keywords Missouri Valley Authority
dc.subject.keywords Monarch Chesterfield Levee
dc.subject.keywords Sun River
dc.title Managing the Missouri: Federal water projects, the landscape, and the law
dc.type article
dc.type.genre dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 73ac537e-725d-4e5f-aa0c-c622bf34c417
thesis.degree.discipline Rural Agricultural Technological and Environmental History
thesis.degree.level dissertation
thesis.degree.name Doctor of Philosophy
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