An environmental history of resistance, negotiation, and conservation on the Massachusetts coast An hour north of Boston, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge occupies the southern three-quarters of Plum Island, a barrier island off the Massachusetts coast. Parker River is a nationally renowned birding destination and the second most-visited wildlife refuge in the Northeast, drawing over 300,000 visitors annually. Today, environmentally minded Massachusetts barely remembers the decade-long fight that reduced the refuge to half its original size. Get Plum Island! tells the forgotten story of how six small towns in Essex County (Newbury, West Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Groveland, and Georgetown) fought the establishment of the refuge in the 1940s. Through political organizing across local, state, and federal levels, the opposition nearly abolished the refuge and ultimately succeeded in making it smaller. The conflict was deeply shaped by class, geography, and competing visions of land use. On one side were elite conservationists-sportsmen, ornithologists, and preservation advocates from Boston, Cambridge, and Newton-who envisioned a federally protected habitat. On the other side of the conflict, a group of mostly middle- and working-class men, farmers, and local hunters organized a resistance to the establishment of a refuge. Through protests, public hearings, and even aggression toward visiting federal officials, local opposition made the case that their communities had clammed, farmed, and hunted the disputed lands before there even was a United States government. They recounted a version of their history as founders of the nation that made them, in their view, entitled to the land that was given to them by the English Crown. In telling this story, Get Plum Island! reveals how ordinary citizens can challenge-and reshape-federal authority, and offers a timely case study in the politics of land, class, and conservation.
Karin A. Martin is professor of sociology at the University of Michigan and author of Puberty, Sexuality, and the Self: Boys and Girls at Adolescence.
"This is an important work that reveals that environmental justice is a concept that is fluid across space, time, and socio-economic class. This is a counterintuitive environmental justice story showing how white middle class communities, using tools and resources unavailable to working communities, still had to fight dislocation at the hands of federal authorities." - Matthew McKenzie, author of Breaking the Banks: Representations and Realities in New England Fisheries, 1866-1966
