Published Articles (in reverse chronological order of publication)

This essay interrogates a series of 11 photographs from the interwar period that visually describes the process of clearing timberland for farming. Although the photos and captions made the process seem easy and natural, the essay argues that such a depiction was culturally positioned, misleading, and contrary to prevailing economic and ecological trends.

"William O. Douglas's Wilderness Politics: Public Protest and Committees of Correspondence in the Pacific Northwest." Western Historical Quarterly37 (Spring 2006): 21-42.

"Modern Ahabs in Texas: William O. Douglas and Lone Star Conservation." Journal of the West. 44 (Fall 2005): 39-46.

This essay explores the environmental activism in which Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas participated in Texas. Douglas confronted entrenched interests in Texas, as well as few federal lands. He argued that unique environmental areas of Texas were the heritage of all citizens and thus deserved federal protection--since the state was doing such a poor job. Drawing a parallel with the biblical parable of Ahab in Naboth's vineyard (I Kings, Chapter 21), Douglas argued that special interests were squandering Texas' natural inheritance. His book--Farewell to Texas: A Vanishing Wilderness--explored these themes and brought much-needed attention to conservation fights in Texas. In the end, it was his presence as a national figure that did the most to help the issue, for he commanded attention. This essay is important in showing the justice's adaptability to local circumstances in his environmentalism. 

"William O. Douglas: The Environmental Justice." In The Human Tradition in the American West, ed. Benson Tong and Regan Lutz, 155-170. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2001. This has been reprinted in The Human Tradition in American: 1865 to the Present, ed. Charles W. Calhoun, 301-316. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2003.

This essay provides an overview of Justice William O. Douglas, arguing that he was a quintessential Westerner capitalizing on images of rugged independence and the magnificent out-of-doors. Douglas' Western-ness mattered to his political acceptability in the New Deal, and he cultivated the image throughout his career. Although he lived most of his life in the East, Douglas was a Westerner at heart and some of his most important activism (e.g., protest hike against a road in Washington's Olympic National Park) and judicial decisions (e.g., Udall v. FPC [1967], Sierra Club v. Morton [1972]) focused on Western lands. This essay furnishes a brief overview of Douglas, reorienting scholarly attention away from his liberal judicial opinions and civil libertarianism and toward his Western environmentalism. 

"Administrative Trials, Environmental Consequences, and the Use of History in Arizona's Tonto National Forest, 1926-1996." Western Historical Quarterly 31 (Summer 2000): 189-214.

Managers of the Tonto National Forest near Phoenix, Arizona attempted to rehabilitate the range that had been decimated by decades of ranching. Turning to the forest's environmental history as a management tool, they hoped to rehabilitate the rangeland by approximating past land-use patterns. However, history eventually became irrelevant as recreationists from Phoenix, not traditional ranchers, became the dominant forest users. This article contributes much to current historiography by demonstrating attempts to rehabilitate rangelands. Moreover, it addresses a central issue in modern Western history--the relationship between metropolitan areas and their rural hinterlands.

"Spiritual Egalitarianism: John Muir's Religious Environmentalism." In John Muir in Historical Perspective, ed. Sally M. Miller, 123-136. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1999.

This essay argues that John Muir--the nineteenth-century preservationist--used his spirituality to shape his environmental thinking. Rejecting notions of Christianity that posited a hierarchical world with humans on top (i.e., anthropocentrism), Muir believed instead that God created all the world equally and all creatures--indeed, all creation--were equal spiritually. Additionally, it argues that this modified Christian perspective formed relatively early in his life. This argument contributes to the literature of Muir's religion by arguing that, although he rejected certain elements of Christianity as practiced in the United States, he nonetheless interpreted his environmentalism in religious and Christian terms, which set the stage for much twentieth-century environmental thought.

"Reclamation, Ranching and Reservation: Environmental, Cultural, and Governmental Rivalries in Transitional Arizona." Journal of the Southwest 40 (Autumn 1998): 333-361.

This article explores the tensions between farmers in the Salt River Valley, pastoralists on the Tonto range, and irrigationists along the Salt and Verde Rivers in central Arizona. More specifically, it examines competition between Phoenix farmers who wanted watershed protection and the sheep and cattle ranchers in the Tonto rangeland, as well as the competition between the sheep and cattle interests. What is revealed is that settled farmers commanded greater political power and successfully argued for the reservation of the Tonto region in a national forest and secured federal funding for the Roosevelt Dam reclamation project. In addition, rivalries between sheep and cattle ranchers demonstrated competing notions of property and cultural values. In the end, the existence of all of these rival groups exacerbated resource exploitation leading to a devastated environment. This essay fits well within the Western environmental historiography showing how culture, economy, and ecology interacted to decimate natural resources. Moreover, it demonstrates the political power of urban and agricultural boosters and the federal government in Western resource management.