The development and control of water has been an important theme in American history throughout the last 200 years. This history can be especially well observed in two episodes: the persistent effort to control the floodwaters of the Mississippi River, through construction of levees and reservoirs, and the draining of floodplains; and the development of western rivers for irrigation and hydroelectric power production. Much of the human landscape of the west, from Los Angeles, to the irrigated farms of the Central and Imperial Valleys in California, to the desert cities of Arizona and other western states, has only been possible because of the manipulation of the In these episodes several themes have been important, including:

• the ideology of the control of nature through engineering works
• the role of dams, such as the Hoover Dam, as symbols of expertise and national power
• the replacement of natural wealth, such as floodplain or wetland ecosystems, with private wealth, in the form of irrigated fields or electric power
• the significance of large and powerful government agencies, such as the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the US Bureau of Reclamation, in water development
• the close relationship between these government agencies, and private sector interests in water development

	Click on images for larger image. Photos taken by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Grand Coule Dam (August. 1986)		Hoover Dam

Photo Credits o Department of the Interior - Bureau of Reclamation Lower Colorado Region, Hoover Dam, Hoover Dam web site, Retrieved by IDSNet 98/07/28 o Hubbard, Charles, Grand Coulee Dam: Columbia Basin Project, personal web page, Retrieved by IDSNet 98/07/28

Sources:
o Jackson, Donald C., Building the Ultimate Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water in the West, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995).
o Fred Pearce, The Dammed, pp. 41-49 (a brief history of efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River).
o Pitzer, Paul, Grand Coulee: Harnessing a Dream, (Pullman, Wash.: Washington State University Press, 1994). [Portrays construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, highlighting the dam's portrayal as a feat of engineering, and a symbol of American know-how; the role of dam construction in regional development of a depressed region; and the
significance of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, of which Grand Coulee was a part.]
o Reisner, Marc, Cadillac Dream: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1986, 1993).
o Steinberg, Theodore, "'That World's Fair Feeling': Control of Water in Twentieth Century America," Technology and Culture, 1993, 34(2):.
o Worster, Donald, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).