Matthew Klingle

Associate Professor of History and Environmental Studies

Fall 2009

  • Frontier Crossings: The Western Experience in American History (ES 015)
Phone (207) 798-7141
Title Associate Professor
Department HISTORY
2nd Title Associate Professor
2nd Department ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Work Location 110 Adams Hall
E-Mail mklingle@bowdoin.edu
klingle

Education

Ph.D., History, University of Washington (2001)
M.A., History, University of Washington (1995)
B.A., History, University of California, Berkeley (1990)

Major Publications

Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle,The Lamar Series in Western History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007; paper and Kindle, 2008)

Emerald City: An Environmental History of SeattleSeattle's troubles were also America's troubles.  Their shared plight stemmed from a long and complicated history that places humans and their environment at an impasse.  The history of salmon and the city is tangled, and when Seattleites try to pry the two apart, they find themselves confronting a history embedded in the city's very foundations.  The resulting questions spin heads: Are cities natural?  Are salmon unnatural?  Are salmon raised in captivity wild?  Can a wild salmon live in a man-made river?  But to ask these questions is to fall into the dualism that pervades so much environmental thinking.  Nature must be pure, yet historically speaking that has turned out to be an elusive state....We need to rethink what an attention to history, human and non-human, can offer.  To do this we must fully understand the notion of an ethic of place.
 
From the "Prologue: The Fish that Might Save Seattle," Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle
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"Fair Play: Outdoor Recreation and Environmental Inequality in Twentieth-century Seattle," in The Nature of Cities: Culture, Landscape, and Urban Space Andrew Isenberg, ed. Studies in Comparative History series (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press in association with the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University, 2006), 122-56

"Changing Spaces: Nature, Property, and Power in Seattle, 1890-1945," Journal of Urban History 32 (January 2006), 197-230

"Fluid Dynamics: Water, Power, and the Reengineering of Seattle's Duwamish River" (Special Issue on Water and the Urban West), Journal of the West 44 (Summer 2005): 22-29

"Spaces of Consumption in Environmental History" (Theme Issue on Environment and History), History and Theory 42 (December 2003): 94-110
Abstract »

"Plying Atomic Waters: Lauren R. Donaldson and the 'Fern Lake concept' of Fisheries Management," Journal of the History of Biology 31 (Spring 1998): 1-32

Selected Works-in-Progress

"'The Fish that Might Save Seattle': Salmon and the Unexpected Presence of the Past," in Cities in Nature: Urban Environments in the American West, Char Miller, ed. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, forthcoming)

"Consumerism," in The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History, Andrew Isenberg, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

"Cities on the Brink: The Pacific Slope as an Urban Borderland," for Frontier Cities, Jay Gitlin, Adam Arenson, and Barbara Berglund, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

Recent Invited Presentations and Selected Papers

"The Nature of Equity in the American City," Urban History Association Annual Luncheon at the Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Seattle, March 27, 2009

Presentation and discussion on Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle for Institutional Racism and Social Justice Program, City of Seattle Legislative Department, March 26, 2009

"Metronatural: The Northwestern City and Nature," James Connelly Lecturer, University of Portland, October 2, 2008

"Metronatural Dreams, Metrotoxic Nightmares: History and Geographies of Inequality in Seattle," Academic Salon Series "Human/Nature," Seattle University, April 17, 2008

"Metropolitan Empire: American Cities and the Pacific Rim" for "Frontier Cities: A Conference Commemorating the Work of John Francis McDermott and Richard Wade," co-sponsored by the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders, Yale University, and The St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, March 1, 2008

"On History and Honor," Honors Day Address, Bowdoin College, May 9, 2007

Selected Honors and Grants

Ray Allen Billington Prize (for Emerald City), Best Book in American Frontier History, Organization of American Historians, 2009

Sydney B. Karofsky Prize for Junior Faculty (for excellence in teaching), Bowdoin College, 2006

ACLS/Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Junior Faculty, American Council of Learned Societies, 2004-05

Summer Stipend Award, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2004

Co-Primary Investigator, Merrymeeting Bay Long-Term Ecological Research Project, Henry Luce Foundation Research Grant (John Lichter, Biology/Environmental Studies, Primary Investigator; Peter Lea, Geology, Matthew Klingle, History/Environmental Studies, and DeWitt John, Government/Environmental Studies, Co-Primary Investigators), 2003-06

Best Dissertation in Urban History, Urban History Association, 2002

National Fellow, Environmental Leadership Program, 2001-03

Science to Achieve Results Fellowship, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1999-2002

Alice Hamilton Prize, Best Article in Environmental History (published outside of Environmental History), American Society for Environmental History, 1999

Selected Exhibits and Multimedia Materials

"The Androscoggin River: A Living History--A Curriculum Project for Maine Middle-school Students Created by students at Bowdoin College," (Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College Environmental Studies Program and Information Technology, 2007-09)

"Building Nature: Topics in the Environmental History of Seattle and Spokane--A Curriculum Project for the History of the Pacific Northwest in Washington State Schools," (Seattle: Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington, 2006)

watkins museumGuest Curator, Beyond the Frontier: The Mythic West in American Art and Culture, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME. Temporary exhibit, February 26-March 31, 2002 and March 3-April 26, 2009

Historian and Consultant, Salmon Stakes: People, Technology, Nature, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, WA. Permanent exhibit. Opened January 1998

Selected Review Essays, General Articles, and Media Appearances

"Clio's Rough Roads," review essay on Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and History for "Anniversary Forum: What Books Should Be More Widely Read in Environmental History," Environmental History 10 (October 2005): 702-04

"Class Notes: Thoughts on Diversity in the Classroom and in Environmentalism's Past," in Diversity and the Future of the U.S. Environmental Movement, Emily Enderle and James Gustave Speth, eds. (New Haven, CT: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Publication Series, 2007), 73-94

"Caste from the Past" (with Joseph E. Taylor III), article for "Poverty and the Environment--A Grist Special Series," Grist Magazine, March 8, 2006

Interview for "The Public Green and the Poor," documentary produced by Richard Paul for Soundprint, broadcast on National Public Radio affiliates nationwide the week of January 23, 2006

Additional Information and Student Resources