Exploring Environmental History Here

     The President’s column below first appeared in the Baltimore City Historical Society (BCHS) Spring 2013 Gaslight Newsletter. It is reproduced here because it is my hope that there are history lovers out there who may find it worth reading.

     After the column is news about an upcoming free public series exploring our environmental history which is taking place here in North Baltimore.

President's Column by Joe Stewart  

When Judge John Carroll Byrnes was launching our society, he and I were both lap swimmers at a pool above Jones Falls. I was creating my own project, later christened Save the Patapsco, Hon which began with a commitment to swim across Patapsco River. While searching for a spot to start and finish the swim and exploring the banks along the length of the tributary - camera in tow - I expanded the project to include a traveling photo exhibit. Who to raise pledges for during my crossing led me to meetings of local watershed organizations and appointment to the Patapsco/Back River Tributary Team where I learned a great deal about the historic sources of pollution to our waterway.  

Reading The Patapsco: Baltimore's River of History by Paul J. Travers caused me to place historical text next to my photos in the exhibit that opened at the now-closed Baltimore City Public Works Museum. Billed as a chance to explore the natural beauty, history and diversity of the Patapsco River and follow the waterway's course from a spring outside of Mt. Airy all the way to the Chesapeake Bay, the show traveled to a dozen venues, including public libraries in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll and Howard Counties, which share the river's watershed with the City. Over five consecutive Preakness weekends, I swam across the mouth of the Patapsco and raised $20,000 for its stewards. At the finish of my first crossing Paul Travers introduced himself to me on shore and we presented signed copies of his book to the boat and kayak crew making my swim possible.

Now Paul and I are fellow BCHS board members. His wonderful book gives the river a voice - if not a vote - and makes a convincing case for its cultural heritage to the city, region and nation. When I joined this society it was Paul's book that served as my membership dues. A decade later I find myself on another quest: to learn about and see BCHS promote local environmental history.

The American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) website was an excellent place to begin my search and it was in Environmental History that I found this by William H. McNeill:   "The elementary fact that human beings share the earth with other forms of life, and have from ancient times been capable of altering natural balances more drastically than any other species has ever done, surely ought to become part of all historians' consciousness."   

From there I broadened my search, reading An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World: Something New Under the Sun by J. R. Mc Neill which covers the globe and one hundred years swiftly and succinctly with an introduction on significant factors affecting the environment over the last century - especially economic growth and surges in population, productivity and energy use; which is followed by chapters broken down by air, land and water; concluding with one on ideas that dominated that time period, e.g. the growth imperative and security anxiety; summing up with this caution:   "The enormity of ecological change in the twentieth century suggests that history and ecology, at least in modern times, must take one another properly into account. Modern history written as if the life-support systems of the planet were stable, present only in the background of human affairs, is not only incomplete but is misleading. Ecology that neglects the complexity of social forces and dynamics of historical change is equally limited. Both history and ecology are, as fields of knowledge go, supremely integrative. They merely need to integrate with one another."   

Moving closer to home I went on to The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States by Mark Flege who revisits significant well known events while accounting for the role of nature in each one. He tells engaging lyrical stories about the New England Witch Trials, the Declaration of Independence, The Cotton Plant and Southern Slavery, Gettysburg and the Civic War, Building the Trans-continental Railroad, the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, The Color Line in Topeka, Kansas and Brown v. Board of Education, and the Oil Embargo in 1973, weaving in the critical role played by nature in each chapter of American history. He succeeds in provoking questions about the role of nature throughout our history and demonstrating this role can be found where we might not otherwise think to look for it.  

For future exploration, The University of Pittsburgh Press has published a series of local environmental history volumes, History of the Urban Environment, including ones on Boston, Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia, but not on Baltimore. Aren't we overdue in Baltimore for an in depth, over time, fresh look at the ways we have affected nature and how nature has affected us? Isn't it time we revisit the past to produce new stories addressing how prior belief systems, cultural influences, driving forces and changing and conflicting values led those that came before us to relate to and use nature in the ways they did, often resulting in legacies we are left to grapple with today?  

Revisiting Rachel Carson gave me goose bumps as she describes our first coming ashore in The Sea Around Us:   "As the lands rose and the seas receded, a strange fishlike creature emerged on the land, and over the thousands of years its fins became legs, and instead of gills it developed lungs. In the Devonian sandstone this first amphibian left its footprint."  

I hope BCHS will encourage and facilitate articles, lectures and seminars that travel back through time to historically account for our collective footprint since Captain John Smith came up the river leading to our city by the sea.


     The reading and research which resulted in the column above spurred me on to find speakers who might discuss the subject of exploring our environmental history in a free, public series. With the help of Creation Care at the Cathedral of the Incarnation and Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks and Landscapes, as well as from the American Society for Environmental Historians (ASEH) the series will be launched next month!  

Geoffrey Buckley will be the kick-off presenter Saturday August 10, 2013:

The Baltimore Ecosystem Study: Reflecting on 15 Years of Historical Environmental Research.

McKay Jenkins will follow Saturday November 2, 2013:

What’s Gotten Into Us: Toxic Chemicals and Their Impact on Our Health and the Environment.

Then Adam Rome on Saturday December 7, 2013:

The Nature of the Metropolis.

     Each program runs from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm in the Peabody Room, Cathedral of the Incarnation at 4 East University Parkway, Baltimore 21218 where the admission and parking are free. For directions, visit www.incarnationbaltimore.org

     Short biographies of the speakers follow here:

     Geoffrey Buckley is the author of “America's Conservation Impulse: Saving Trees in the Old Line State”, “Mountains of Injustice: Social and Environmental Justice in Appalachia” and the upcoming “North American Odyssey: Historical Geographies for the Twenty-First Century”. He is an Ohio University Professor and Long-Term Ecological Research - Baltimore Ecosystem Study Co-Principal Investigator. He has a Ph.D. in Geography from University of Maryland, a M.A., Geography from University of Oregon and a B.A., Environmental Studies and American History from Connecticut College. http://www.ohio.edu/people/buckleg1/

     McKay Jenkins is the author of “What's Gotten into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World” and editor of “The Peter Mattiessen Reader”, an anthology of American nature writing. He is the Cornelius Tighman Professor of English, Journalism and Environmental Humanities at the University of Delaware. He has a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University, a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in English from Amherst College. His recent essay “The Era of Suburban Sprawl has to End. So, Now What” is at his webpage: www.mckayjenkins.com.

     Adam Rome is the author of the recently published “The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation” and the prize-winning “The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism”. He also is past editor of the journal “Environmental History”. He has a B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in American Environmental History. He teaches history and environmental non-fiction at the University of Delaware. www.udel.edu/History/bio/rome_adam.html.

     To discover more local, historical programs visit www.historicbaltimore.org.

     If you are a history enthusiast, history lover or interested in local history, consider joining BCHS. It is one of the best buys in Baltimore!