Turning the Tide: The Politics of Land and Leisure on the California and Mexican Coastlines in the Age of Environmentalism

Fingal, Sara C.

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Overview

Year:: 2012
Contributor:: Fingal, Sara C. (creator); Self, Robert (Director); Jacoby, Karl (Reader); Garcia, Matthew (Reader); Brown University. History (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: public access; California coast; Baja California; consumption; Environmentalism; California--Pacific Coast
Extent:: x, 232 p.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0W957HR

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Description

Abstract:: This dissertation examines the competing values of public access and private ownership along the California and Mexican coasts between 1964 and 1979. In four case studies, encompassing local, state, and transnational battles, I analyze how multiple groups and interests contended over coastal spaces and politicized seaside leisure. Beginning on the urban coast of Los Angeles where social justice activists protested the construction of a yacht marina replacing a popular shoreline among diverse beachgoers, the project moves north to the rural coastal zone of Sonoma County. Along this northern coast, environmental activists objected to the growth of private development blocking access to public tidelands. This study then takes up the entire California coastline in the statewide battle over the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act, a political campaign that replayed at the state level the local issues raised throughout the state. I conclude with Americans building seaside homes across the border in Baja California, despite Mexico’s constitutional law prohibiting foreigners from owning land on the coast. By exploring conflicts over coastal landscapes, this project expands the social and cultural history of postwar American consumerism to include the mass consumption of nature. This study also contributes to political history by exploring the conflict between private and public rights related to land usage. Finally, it enhances the environmental history dialogue centered on a transitional moment in the development of the modern environmental movement. From the local neighborhood to the international border, this dissertation considers the coastline as a space understood as both public resource and private property, at once nature or wilderness and urban or suburban. “Turning the Tide” tells the story of how nature, politics, and culture intersected at a moment when Americans were once again debating what constituted “rights” in their society.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2012)

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Rights: In Copyright
Restrictions on Use: Collection is open for research.

Citation

Fingal, Sara C., "Turning the Tide: The Politics of Land and Leisure on the California and Mexican Coastlines in the Age of Environmentalism" (2012). History Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0W957HR

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History Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the History department.
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