The United States Army, Natural Resources, and Political Development in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century the federal government undertook a number of natural resources policy initiatives. During this of courts and parties, the federal state needed some administrative presence to help it supply public goods within the development-oriented distributive politics. The United States Army was called upon to play this role in water projects and scientific geography. Toward the end of the century, the Army's natural resources management mission changed. As a new American state was being built, one in which regulatory politics played a more significant role, the Army served an important function in providing patchwork administrative capacity, demonstrated by its administration of national parks and forest reserves. During this time span, whether supplying public goods or regulating access to public lands, the Army was called upon for its professionalism, its expertise, and its presence in parts of the nation where these policies needed to be administered.