Article ID: CBB798720878

Watershed Democracy: Rural Environmentalism and the Battle Against the TVA in Western North Carolina, 1965–1972 (October 2018)

unapi

Scholars have overlooked the role that rural southerners played in the 1960s environmental movement. The prevailing narratives chronicle the post-1945 activities of American white middle-class Democrats who, wanting to protect their new suburban landscapes, embraced environmentalism. Popular in the North and West, the 1960s environmental movement seemed to have bypassed the South, especially in more rural parts of the region. There, political conservatism, “the persistence of rural attitudes” (according to Samuel Hays), and slow urban growth had supposedly limited the influence of the movement. In western North Carolina, environmentalism struck a chord among men and women who organized to repeatedly oppose the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans to build dams to control floods long after the New Deal was over. These rural residents—from farmers to birdwatchers—maintained that their livelihoods and rural communities depended on the preservation of the French Broad River and its floodplain. Nor did political and fiscal conservatives shun environmentalism. Republicans, sharing a common enemy and a genuine concern for the environment, aligned with environmentalists and helped found the Upper French Broad Defense Association. Together, green conservatives and liberals joined forces. They marshaled a local battle with little outside assistance to halt the march of high modernism in the rural Sun Belt.

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Authors & Contributors
Bell, Shannon Elizabeth
William W. Buzbee
Maar, Henry Richard, III
Freyfogle, Eric T.
Thomson, Jennifer Christine
Olsson, Tore
Concepts
Political activists and activism
Environmentalism
Science and politics
Technology and politics
Dams
Environmental degradation
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
Southeast Asia
Soviet Union
Mekong River
San Diego (California)
Seattle (Washington, U.S.)
Institutions
Tennessee Valley Authority
Friends of the Earth
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