| The late nineteenth century witnessed a continuing conflict between the hydrologically conservative proposals of John Wesley Powell and those offered by the likes of William Gilpin ("rain follows the plow"). Their differences, reactions to the burgeoning Myth of the Garden, evolved into an ongoing, self-perpetuating dispute over land and water rights as well as a deeper ideological conflict over the proper management of the national trust. As the frontier closed and regional power collected in the hands of a select few, control over the privileged sign--water--emerged as the defining issue of the arid Southwest. The myth of "reclamation" evolved from the garden myth to become the defining Western hydraulic vision for much of the twentieth century. In recent years, the concept of "restoration" has emerged from the environmental movement to contest reclamation for ideological and geographic hegemony in the region. This dissertation examines the role of water as privileged sign in the literature and politics of the Southwest, focusing on the works of Mary Austin, John Steinbeck and Edward Abbey, with an introductory chapter discussing John Wesley Powell's influence on the region's geography, iconography, and literature. Austin, Steinbeck, and Abbey represent three different phases of the Reclamation Era and so offer distinct yet evolving versions of the greater conflict between the needs of an expanding hydraulic society and the ecological realities of an arid region. |
