Sand and Steel: a review of Kay Franklin and Norma Schaeffer’s Duel For The Dunes
The Indiana Dunes have been an overlooked but exceptionally important part of not just Indiana history but United States and world history. This is the place where Henry Chandler Cowles came up with and perfected his Plant Succession Theory. He is the man who also coined the term Ecology which has become an extremely important area of scientific research. Ecologists have worked closely with politicians to form policies that have beneficial impacts on our natural resources and environment as a whole. The Indiana Dunes are a microcosm of the interaction of politics, land-use debate, industrial and environmental policies. The Dunes are also rare and fragile products of hundreds of thousands of years of water, wind, and sand. They cannot be rebuilt in an conceivable timeframe. The importance of the geographical area to industry is also great. Chicago is just up the coast and land is at a premium in the area. Early surveyors found the Dunes to be worthless tracks of land which laid the foundation for their exploitation in the future. If expanding industry that wanted to use the rail lines and labor potential of Chicago needed land then what better than the already acknowledged “worthless” Indiana Dunes?
Kay Franklin and Norma Schaeffer make a strong, if very biased, argument for the saving of the dunes in their land use history Duel For The Dunes. It is a compelling and comprehensive book from the viewpoint of the conservationists. This is not to say it is not a fine history of the more industrial political agenda in regards to the Dunes, but it is decidedly more in depth in relation to the environmental cause. Franklin and Schaefer come down squarely on the side of Dune preservation. The reader gets a strong biographical history of the conservationists with a couple of the industrial/political giants (Halleck 57 and 154. Chester 106.) in opposition. It does seem that the facts could carry the reader’s opinion in the same direction the authors push for and would be a more powerful argument in the process. There are many more biographical sketches of the conservationist side and they are written with, what seems like, more energy. The sketches of Paul Douglas on page 169 and Bess Sheehan on page 85 are excellent examples to use in comparison to the Halleck and Chester histories. The language is positive, optimistic, and full of hopeful energy in regards to Douglas and Sheehan whereas Halleck and Chester are written in a much more harsh light. I cannot say that I disagree with the opinion but it seems that a scholarly history should be written with a bit more of a journalistic, and by this I mean true journalism not this hogwash we are subjected to for the most part, approach.
In reviewing this book, which is excellently written and full of obscure local information, I am not against forming then giving my opinion. That is the job description of the reviewer. An honest history should attempt to stay apolitical and leave the writer’s opinions out of the text. At the very least the opinions of a scholarly historical writer should be much more subtle than those of Franklin and Schaeffer. It may be that The authors think of themselves as activists and chroniclers rather than just chroniclers. I do think it limits the audience for the book and fits into the “preaching to the choir” category a little too firmly. Within an historical text opinions can be had but should be brought about through the use of factual information not blatant blanket statements.
That said, Duel For The Dunes is likely the best history we will get on the Dunes. It is a very good history even with the obvious bias. The opinions of the authors are not wrong, just out of place. The book reads as one giant editorial, a very good editorial. Franklin and Scaeffer call out the people who should be called out and give respect to those who deserve it. The only issue is they give good reasons for the respect while relying on selfishness, greed, and domination as the stereotypical attributes of the Halleck and the Chester types. This very well could be the case but it weakens an argument to be so very one sided. It could be argued, and for the sake of honest debate should be, that Chester and Halleck were concerned about the people of Indiana. They may have seen the conservationists points but the economic reality was such that the Dunes were very necessary and extremely valuable for their industrial usage. Bethelehem and U.S. Steel obviously thought this was the case but they are massive businesses with stockholders and employees to think about.
The argument could easily be made that this Dunes issue was not about greed but about the betterment of all the lives involved. I definitely do not think this is the case. I feel completely certain that this situation was almost totally about greed and business domination but I gather that from the facts rather than the historical point of view that Franklin and Schaeffer try to put across. For example it is a matter of public record that Bethelehem Steel had sand removed and dunes destroyed before legislation was looked at about their doing this (120). This is a blatant disregard for the law. Bethelehem Steel was confident that they could do what they wanted without interference from social or political groups or from the Indiana and United States government (that is if one were to believe that there is a difference between political organizations and government).
This is a fact that could be simply stated and carry much weight. It can be used as the crux of a very strong argument for the greed and lack of respect industry has for rules and regulations. In the context that it is used it becomes lost amongst the plethora of more hyperbolic complaints. This fact loses its power. This is dangerous when the subject is one of such economic, social, and environmental importance. The conservationists already believe in the cause and if the goal is, and I think Franklin and Schaeffer would think it is, to get people to understand the issue then the fact itself will carry more authority than the opinions of the authors. It becomes somewhat self-defeating in that the readers of Duel For The Dunes will, likely, always be the conservationists themselves rather than the general and unconvinced public.
There is some very good and solid history in the book as well. It is not all a biased viewpoint from the side of conservation. The demographic history of Indiana on pages 151-153 is a short but concise look at the changes of ethnic and political viewpoints of the population that had shifted from mostly rural to mostly urban. Farmer’s in 1960 comprised about ten percent of Indiana’s population as a whole. Industry had risen and with it an urban workforce that had a powerful voting significance.
The interesting point of major contention was that the industrial bosses held to a very different political agenda than their workforce did. This is obvious within a Capitalist economic system but the contention grew with the strength of the laborers. The money of the industrial giants could, sometimes, be affected by the sheer numbers of laborers. This was especially true as the laborers truly began to band together and unionize. These two pages of Duel For The Dunes say so much in so few words. This is very fine historical writing and more of it is hidden throughout the book amongst the hyperbolic bias.
The book is full of very interesting dialogue, or lack thereof, between U.S. Steel, Bethelehem Steel, the state of Indiana, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service, Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), and multiple conservation groups. It reads, at times, like a spy novel full of intrigues through political maneuvering. Chapter Seven: “A Shaky Peace” is full of this political meandering. Indiana is beginning to grow into a more diverse state and the politics reflect that (151-176). However, it is early yet (1955-1960) outlier of too much an extreme from the norm. Indiana was changing, slowly and carefully. Chapter Seven explains, quite well, the politics of early cold war/conservative era Indiana and its opposition to a “liberal” conservationist agenda. It is a good representation of the era and Indiana’s role in it.
There is good and bad in this Duel For The Dunes but the information involved with the bad makes it a book well worth reading for any scholar of land use on the shorelines of the Great Lakes.
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