Natural Attachments: The Domestication of American Environmentalism, 1920–1970

A nuanced analysis takes a California oil spill as its point of departure to show how affluent homeowners pushed for an environmentalism that would protect not only the earth but also property and community norms.

A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara, California, in 1969 quickly became a landmark in the history of American environmentalism, helping to inspire the creation of both the Environmental Protection Agency and Earth Day. But what role did the history of Santa Barbara itself play in this? As Pollyanna Rhee shows, the city’s past and demographics were essential to the portrayal of the oil spill as momentous. Moreover, well-off and influential Santa Barbarans were positioned to “domesticate” the larger environmental movement by embodying the argument that individual homes and families—not society as a whole—needed protection from environmental abuses. This soon would put environmental rhetoric and power to fundamentally conservative—not radical—ends.