Sarah S. Elkind
New Research Projects and
Publications
Water Resource Policy and
Irrigation Development in Spain.
Photo:
Beth Holmberg, El Villar Dam, Lozoyuela, Spain, 2007
Both Spain
and the United States inaugurated ambitious national irrigation programs in the
early twentieth century. Key
advocates of irrigation saw these programs as important to their country's
economic future, but essential to building a strong, culturally coherent
nation. My research examines local
reactions to irrigation projects in Spain, the ways Spanish and American
irrigation advocates influenced each other, and their different understanding
of what nationbuilding in the early twentieth century required.
Public History, Memory and the
Construction of National Culture.
Photo:
Beth Holmberg, Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, Denmark, 2009
Historical
parks and museums present visitors with vivid representations of history and
culture. The events and ideas that
parks and museums choose to emphasize contribute a great deal to visitors'
understanding of local or national identity. In this project, I will compare historical sites in Europe
and the United States to identify how their educational programming shapes (and
is shaped by) national identity and values.
Major Publications:
Influence: Interest Groups, Cities and
Enviromental Politics from the 1920s to the 1950s. Under review, University of North
Carolina Press.
This book uses
the history of oil drilling, air pollution control, and flood control in Los
Angeles, along with the national debates over hydroelectric power development
at Hoover Dam, and national water resources planning to explain how business
groups came to dominate local politics, and how then how local policies came to
shape federal programs. It
explores a crucial moment in American politics, when the American business
community convinced the American public that the federal government represented
a greater threat to the public interest than did the private sector.
Bay Cities and Water Politics: The Battle for Resources in Boston and Oakland, 1880-1930,University Press of Kansas, 1998.
This comparison of regional urban public works in Massachusetts and California
shows that urban residents embraced new political institutions, taxes and
services only when they believed that water or sanitation failures contributed
to larger social problems, such as epidemic disease and social disorder in
Boston, or economic stagnation and loss of local autonomy in Oakland. This book has been widely praised a
model of comparative history and political analysis. It received the Public Works Historical Society's Abel
Wolman book award in 1999.
Public Works and Public
Health: Reflections on Urban
Politics and Environment, 1880-1925, in Essays in Public Works History, no. 19, Public Works
Historical Society, 1999.
Articles
published on environmental justice, the history of public beaches, and the
impact of war on environmental policy.
For more information about my research and publications, see my curriculum vitae.