Famous for fields and factories, Ohio is also a land of rivers. Using a series of historical maps and images, this talk will describe how Ohio rivers inspired imperial imaginations and built industrial wealth. The story bends through the twentieth century, as intense exploitation of waterways threatened the renewability of the state’s river resources, and then it bends again as popular outrage forced policy changes that have revived visions of a future nourished by healthy rivers.

This event is free and open to the public.

About the speaker:

David Stradling is the Zane L. Miller Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati. He has authored several books, including The Nature of New York: An Environmental History of the Empire State (2010), Making Mountains: New York City and the Catskills (2007), Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers and Air Quality in America, 1881-1951 (1999), and, with Richard Stradling, Where the River Burned: Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland (2015). He is currently traveling the world to research the global history of dredging.