IsisCB Explore-S!!

Thesis ID: CBB001560680

A Natural Laboratory, a National Monument: Carving Out a Place for Science in Glacier Bay, Alaska, 1879--1959 (2009)

University of Minnesota
Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory
Borrello, Mark
Publication date: 2009
Language: English

Publication Date: 2009
Edition Details: Advisor: Gregory Kohlstedt, Sally; Borrello, Mark
Physical Details: 318 pp.

Outside Links

Environmental sciences Glaciology Ecology 20th century, early 19th century Alaska (U.S.) Glacier National Park

Beginning with John Muir's "discovery" in 1879, Glacier Bay has become a place constructed in the American imagination. In this construction of place, no single group played a more important role than scientists. While other national parks--e.g. Yellowstone and Yosemite--were greatly the products of commercial lobbies and political maneuverings, Glacier Bay National Monument (later National Park) grew out of a grass roots lobbying effort by the Ecological Society of America (ESA). Since 1879, Glacier Bay has an unbroken history of scientific study: from 1879 forward its glaciers have been regularly mapped, and from 1916 its ecological patterns have been persistently studied. Because of this long, continuous history of scientific study, Glacier Bay serves as an ideal case for the study of the interaction between place and the field sciences. This study analyzes the role played by Glacier Bay in shaping scientific practice and theory in ecology and glaciology between 1879 and 1959. At the same time, it also analyzes the impact scientists and scientific theory had on the place - defined both by physical location and by constructed social spaces. Within the overarching argument about the agency of place in shaping scientific theory, practice, and community, this dissertation makes several arguments that challenge and enhance the standing historiography on American ecology and glaciology: (1) It problematizes and challenges the standard story of the history of ecology in America told over the past quarter century, offering a more continuous view of ecological theory and practice. (2) It works toward a better understanding of field practices and how scientists defined their goals and successes in the early years of ecology and glaciology in the American context. (3) It explores the role of scientists as activists and argues that, over the period under consideration, ecologists' understanding of their role as activists was closely tied to how they thought ecology should be studied. (4) It analyzes how ecologists and glaciologists working in Glacier Bay understood the placedness of their work and how changes in their understanding of place interacted with their understanding of local versus universal knowledge. References References (222)

...More

Description “Analyzes the role played by Glacier Bay in shaping scientific practice and theory in ecology and glaciology between 1879 and 1959.” (from the abstract) Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 70/09 (2010). Pub. no. AAT 3371905.

Citation URI

stagingisis.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001560680

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Mamelund, Svenn-Erik; Sattenspiel, Lisa; Dimka, Jessica; (2013)
Influenza-Associated Mortality during the 1918--1919 Influenza Pandemic in Alaska and Labrador: A Comparison

Book Ross, Ken; (2006)
Pioneering Conservation in Alaska

Book Mary Colwell; (2014)
John Muir: The Scotsman who saved America's wild places

Article Ackert, Lloyd T., Jr.; (2007)
The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii's Soil Microbiology, 1885--1940

Article Slusarczyk, J. M.; (2007)
Limnological Investigations of Lakes in the Tatra Mountains in the Years 1804--1918

Article Huijzendveld, Frans D.; (2008)
Changes in Political Economy and Ecology in West-Usambara, Tanzania: ca. 1850--1950

Book Anker, Peder; (2001)
Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895-1945

Article Sinha, Jagdish N.; (2005)
Congress and Conservation---A Look at the NPC Reports

Article Nils Güttler; (2019)
“Hungry for Knowledge”: Towards a Meso-History of the Environmental Sciences

Article Eliot, Christopher; (2007)
Method and Metaphysics in Clements's and Gleason's Ecological Explanations

Article da Silva Nunes, Patricia; Cavassan, Osmar; da Rocha Brando, Fernanda; (2013)
Frederic Edward Clements e o conceito de sucessão ecológica

Article Cameron, Laura; Matless, David; (2011)
Translocal Ecologies: The Norfolk Broads, the “Natural,” and the International Phytogeographical Excursion, 1911

Article Kupper, Patrick; (2009)
Science and the National Parks: A Transatlantic Perspective on the Interwar Years

Article McFarlane, Wallace Scot; (2012)
Defining a Nuisance: Pollution, Science, and Environmental Politics on Maine's Androscoggin River

Article Simberloff, Daniel; (2012)
Integrity, Stability, and Beauty: Aldo Leopold's Evolving View of Nonnative Species

Thesis Newton, Julianne Lutz; (2004)
The Commonweal of Life: Aldo Leopold and Land Health

Article Sörlin, Sverker; (2011)
The Anxieties of a Science Diplomat: Field Coproduction of Climate Knowledge and the Rise and Fall of Hans Ahlmann's “Polar Warming”

Book Hu Pegues; (2021)
Space-Time Colonialism: Alaska's Indigenous and Asian Entanglements

Thesis Whitney, Kristoffer Jon; (2012)
A Knot in Common: Science, Values, and Conservation in the Atlantic Flyway

Article Anker, Peder; (2003)
The Philosopher's Cabin and the Household of Nature