| Book Review | Oregon Historical Quarterly, 109.2

REVIEWS

WORKERS AND THE WILD: CONSERVATION, CONSUMERISM, AND LABOR IN OREGON, 1910–30

by Lawrence Lipin

University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2007. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 248 pages. $25.00 paper. $60.00 cloth.

Workers and the Wild explores the evolving conception of nature embraced by the twentieth century laboring class, using Oregon as an exemplar. Lawrence Lipin discovers that views of nature among the social classes mirrored differences of ideology and that, in many ways, the long running conflict over the environment that has occupied so much of the contemporary political discourse has been not just a story of policy differences. Rather, it has been in large measure a function of class politics rooted in early–twentieth-century values associated with the conflicting perspectives of the working and affluent middle and upper classes.

Wealthy Oregonians of the early-twentieth century were fighting a rearguard action against the encroachment of economic demand on their recreational preserves. Lipin quotes Portland banker Abbott L. Mills's 1919 letter to the state game commissioner, warning that a recent outing to the Bend area revealed that his favorite trout lake was under siege from new, cheap resorts catering to timber workers who fished with bait. The lake, he asserted, must remain a paradise for the discriminating (upper class) "men who love fly casting," meaning that it would be necessary "to close it to bait fishing" or, in other words, to members of the working class (p.1).

Meanwhile, the "producerist" ethic of the lower classes was at work during the Progressive era, relentlessly attempting to subvert the dreams of men like Mills. The small producers — workers, lower–middle-class artisans, farmers, fishermen, businessmen — believed that they should own the fruits of their labors and that the political process should be open, egalitarian, and fair for all. This meant that nature and its resources, the basis of concentrations of wealth and power, should be accessible to them as their birthright. Lipin focuses on the struggle of Oregon's union movement under the Oregon State Federation of Labor (OSFL) and rural organizations like the Grange, as well as fishermen and others who eked out a living in nature, to achieve the dream of a "Producers' Republic." In time, however, he notes a sea change in the attitude of the producers toward nature and its uses. Lipin describes the transformation in the values of the laborite organizations, their members, and unaffiliated workers that animated an evolving view of nature and what to do with it in the 1910s and 1920s. It was this transformation, he writes, that eventuated in the embrace by the labor movement of a consumerist attitude toward nature, an attitude not unlike that of the capitalists they opposed, as it became clear that there were economic as well as social benefits to exploiting nature for recreational purposes.

The strategy labor and its friends first pursued concerning the environment during those decades was based on the assumption that a more just economic order could be achieved by breaking the stranglehold land speculators had on rural and urban spaces. Opening land and resources to development would lead to increased exploitation of resources which, in turn, would result in an increased demand for labor, thus ending the periodic plague of unemployment while also lifting wages. A chief ally was William S. U'Ren, who campaigned energetically for Henry George's single tax — where the only tax would be on land, because profits from rent on it resulted from no labor of the owner — a core idea for the vision of a producers' republic. Over time, U'ren's crusade lost its power to move workers, but not because they lost sight of the ideal it represented. Rather, rising wages and the introduction of new technologies during the 1920s, especially the automobile, marginalized it. Workers particularly esteemed the liberating effect of Henry Ford's automobiles. Ford's revolutionary ideas about assembly-line production and employee relations combined scientific management with Progressive values, setting wages high enough for workers to buy his efficiently manufactured cars. Buying cars led to more leisure, which, in turn, opened up the possibility that the lower classes would have the means and time to relate to nature in somewhat the same way that the affluent always had. Now, nature truly would be accessible and, at the margins at least, it need not be totally dedicated to production.

This is a generally excellent book, imaginative, well documented, and clearly written. Lipin has shone a bright light on the mechanics of a key aspect in the decline of the Progressive impulse and the rise of consumerist culture in Oregon. By grounding his discussion in labor's attitude toward nature, he has revealed a key step along the road to the contemporary relationship to nature. Still, his argument is not without weaknesses. His focus on the 1910s and 1920s, for example, ignores the possibility that the great impetus for the change in labor's views actually occurred earlier, in the late-nineteenth century. Monopoly capitalism in the Gilded Age created a pervasive work-life culture that produced alienation and disconnectedness in workers. The labor movement responded with "Eight Hour Leagues," which militated for "eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will," suggesting an earlier longing among workers for the perquisite of leisure much earlier than the author suggests. At the same time, the distinction was being made between the public and private spheres — the first national park, Yellowstone, was created in 1872. The rich would now have their natural preserves in their private clubs and restricted hunting and fishing grounds, while the middle and working classes would be granted their own by government. These developments imply a social and cultural catalysis for the consumption of nature that developed much earlier in the working class than is perhaps convenient for Lipin's thesis. Discussions of these matters are found in, among other works, Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism (Norton, 1976), and Thomas R. Cox, The Park Builders (University of Washington Press, 1988).

Such demurrals notwithstanding, Lipin has written a book accessible to general readers but no doubt of greatest interest to scholars of Oregon's labor, Progressive, and environmental history. Their attention will be richly rewarded by this stimulating work.

Craig Wollner

Portland State University

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