Hoover, Conservation and Consumerism. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.Hoover, Conservation and Consumerism

Locating the roots of Hoover's personal beliefs in his Quaker upbringing in Oregon and seeing his outlook on the natural world shaped by his frontier experience and education, Clements finds that this policy maker combined an interest in conserving the environment with an engineer's drive to rationalize the use of natural resources. He examines Hoover's difficult negotiation of the Colorado River Pact that permitted the construction of the dam that would bear his name as well as his efforts to create a St. Lawrence Waterway to link the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Hoover's relief efforts during the 1927 Mississippi River flood and his promotion of timber and oil conservation reveal other dimensions of his approach to conservation.

Although Hoover was not a modern environmentalist, he pioneered some of the first broad environmental policies in the United States. The National Conference on Outdoor Recreation brought together wilderness advocates and urban planners, passage of the first federal law to limit oil pollution in navigable waters began an ongoing effort to control the effects of industrialization, and his advocacy of pleasant, affordable housing introduced the idea that the world we live in every day is our most important environmental concern.

In a period most often seen as a wasteland by historians who have viewed Republican environmental policies of the 1920s as mistaken, ineffective, or corrupt, Clements proposes that Hoover's conservation efforts were an attempt to balance growth and conservation. This unparalleled examination of early-twentieth-century conservation speaks to ongoing debates about how best to protect the environment without ruining the economy.

Kendrick A. Clements is professor of history at the University of South Carolina and the author of The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, also published by Kansas.