River of culture, river of power: Identity, modernism, and contest in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, 1848-194

In 1848, central New Mexico was a meeting place for diverse peoples---Pueblo Indians, Hispano farmers, and Anglo-Americans---all of whom held different perceptions of nature and ideas for land use. This dissertation explores contested views of nature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the formation of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District in 1923, its development during the 1920s and 1930s, and its decline in the 1940s.;The environmental perceptions of government agents, politicians, and business leaders with commercial interests in New Mexico clashed with Pueblo and Mexican American farming communities' ideas of nature and subsistence land use practices. Proponents of large scale water development espousing Progressive ideals viewed the conservancy project as "modern," "efficient," and "proper" and criticized Pueblo and Hispano land use practices as "primitive," "wasteful," and "improper." Although valley farmers ultimately failed to prevent the establishment of the conservancy district their story is not solely one of declension nor is it one without lessons. By exploring how Pueblos and Spanish-speakers historically viewed and interacted with the physical landscape and examining the roles that historical agency, intra-ethnic division, as well as Pueblo/Hispano-Anglo coalitions played in the region's history tells a complex story of water development.;Throughout my study I describe the evolution of the local water project in the valley while keeping an eye on how water development and ideas of conservation in central New Mexico fit into the broader context of hydraulic expansion and environmental concerns in the American West and United States. Taking an interdisciplinary approach places the study at the intersection of western, Chicano, and environmental history. Finally, my dissertation sheds new light on environmental history by shifting attention away from environmental studies focusing exclusively on middle-class Americans, recreation, and wilderness preservation to Pueblo and Hispano subsistence farmers who perceived and interacted with the physical landscape differently.