Power + Water: Material Culture and its Environmental Impact

Students explore material culture, its impact upon the environment in the US prior to Industrial Revolution and examine the relationship of this earlier production to current issues of pollution and climate change. In the 18-19th centuries, houses, furniture, whale products were staples of American craft and ingenuity. This material culture tells the story of how gathering raw materials and converting them into usable products came at a severe cost to watersheds, forests, species, humans. These examples show that the seemingly insatiable human urge to control/transform resources into items for consumption leads to serious consequences for the earth’s climate and inhabitants.