Big Dams of the New Deal Era: A CONFLUENCE OF ENGINEERING AND POLITICS

Big Dams of the New Deal Era A CONFLUENCE OF ENGINEERING AND POLITICS David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2006. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index, xiv + 369 pp. $36.95 cloth.

Without question, large dams are among the most prominent and controversial structures on the western American landscape. Enormous compositions of earth and reinforced concrete, they objectify the ambitions, idealism, creativity, power, and problems of the society that produced them. Whereas many scholars and journalists have been drawn to dams as subjects of study, few have explained them as thoroughly, precisely, or insightfully as David Billington and Donald Jackson, two of our finest scholars of engineering history. As the authors explain, the giant multipurpose dams built during the internar period were complex products of both technology and politics. The Great Depression and the New Deal political program, they argue, "provided a compelling catalyst" for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and public works proponents to expand upon established practices and ideas, primarily that government should develop natural resources to foster economic growth (p. 4). The many large dams completed during the 1930s thus represented the culmination of long-term trends in technology and political economy, not simply the advent of a new era in water development.

Billington and Jackson tell the story by surveying New Deal dam planning, construction, and politics in prominent watersheds, such as the Colorado, Columbia, Missouri, and Sacramento-San Joaquin. They center their narrative on the largest, most iconic dams, including Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Shasta, but also on lesser-known structures. In the process, the authors provide clear, profusely illustrated descriptions of dam technologies and the political processes that shaped them. They point out that federal government dams could have embodied either of two design traditions, the massive or the structural. To hold water, massive dams used the power of gravity in combination with large amounts of concrete or earth; structural dams, in contrast, employed the principle of the arch, in the form of relatively thin concrete shells. Of the two traditions, the structural was the most technologically innovative and economically efficient, but government engineers preferred the better-known and established massive tradition. Proponents of massive dams justified the structures' expense by highlighting the multiple benefits-not just water storage for irrigation, but flood control, shipping, and especially hydroelectric power-that they would provide to an urbanizing, industrializing nation.

Of all the dams and regional development projects that Billington and Jackson discuss, Fort Peck and the other structures built by the Corps of Engineers on the upper Missouri River probably will most interest readers of Montana. Begun in 1933 and largely completed by 1940, Fort Peck promised a number of benefits, including flood control and improved navigation on the lower river. Yet among the various justifications for the structure, the most important was the jobs that its construction would create in a remote, economically underdeveloped corner of the Great Plains. Fort Peck was not simply a functional structure; it was a product of politics as well.

Big Dams of the New Deal Era is the best general book on the role of dams in American history. It is less specialized than the authors' previous works but more detailed than Jackson's field guide, Great American Bridges and Dams (1996). Its special strength is its clear explanation of complex technological matters. The discussion of Fort Peck's hydraulic earth-fill design, the failure of the structure in 1938, its subsequent repair and completion, and the influence of these developments on earth-embankment dams downstream exemplify the authors' methods. As western water grows scarce and its management becomes more controversial, it is incumbent on citizens to learn as much as possible about the history of our public hydraulic infrastructure. This outstanding book is the place to begin.

Mark Fiege

Cobrado State University, Fort Collins

Copyright Montana Historical Society Spring 2008
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