The Culture of Wilderness: Agriculture As Colonization in the American WestIn this innovative work of cultural and technological history, Frieda Knobloch describes how agriculture functioned as a colonizing force in the American West between 1862 and 1945. Using agricultural textbooks, USDA documents, and historical accounts of western settlement, she explores the implications of the premise that civilization progresses by bringing agriculture to wilderness. Her analysis is the first to place the trans-Mississippi West in the broad context of European and classical Roman agricultural history. Knobloch shows how western land, plants, animals, and people were subjugated in the name of cultivation and improvement. Illuminating the cultural significance of plows, livestock, trees, grasses, and even weeds, she demonstrates that discourse about agriculture portrays civilization as the emergence of a colonial, socially stratified, and bureaucratic culture from a primitive, feminine, and unruly wilderness. Specifically, Knobloch highlights the displacement of women from their historical role as food gatherers and producers and reveals how Native American land-use patterns functioned as a form of cultural resistance. Describing the professionalization of knowledge, Knobloch concludes that both social and biological diversity have suffered as a result of agricultural 'progress.' |
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The Culture of Wilderness: Agriculture as Colonization in the American West Frieda Knobloch No preview available - 1996 |
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acres agricul alfalfa American Forests American West animals became breeding Canada thistle cattle century chemical civilization colonial commercial Conservation couchgrass cultivation culture Department of Agriculture deterritorializing domesticated downy brome dry farming ecological European farmers field agriculture fields food production forage crop forage plants Forest Service forestry Frederick Jackson Turner frontier garden grain grass grasslands grazing Greeley herbicides herd historians Homestead Act human Ibid immigrants improvement Indian industry introduced irrigation knapweed labor leafy spurge livestock logging longhorn ment military moldboard Montana Muenscher Native American nature Navajo pastures perennial Plains plantain plow prairie railroads range management Range Plant Handbook rangeland rhizome scientific scientists seed sheep social society soil stockraising territory timber companies tion toadflax trees Turner U.S. Department U.S. Forest Service USDA vegetable Virgin Land weed control western agriculture western forests western range wheat Widtsoe wild women wood wool World Worster wrote