Book Review

Canada and the United States

John T. Cumbler's study focuses on the labors, accomplishments, failures, and significance of late nineteenth-century New England reformers who were deeply concerned about environmental degradation in the Connecticut River Valley. These critics were modernists, city residents who found the environmental price tag of urban industrialism extremely high. They believed that the shift from New England's rural agrarian economy had seriously eroded human rights to "nature's gifts—pure water, air, and soil." In urban industrial communities, people lived beside polluted rivers and streams, breathed foul air, drank dirty water, endured stinking open sewers, and suffered from disease and epidemics—conditions unimaginable to Connecticut River Valley residents early in the nineteenth century. Because many of these critics had witnessed the transition and recognized the economic stimulus it produced, they knew they could not undo change. But they believed they could improve the quality of life. While they had public support, they lacked the political clout to counter the powerful and influential leaders of the new industrial order. Cumbler analyzes the substantive and tactical record of those pioneering New England precursors of progressivism as they worked to create a better living environment.

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