“Too Infernally Scientific”: John Wesley Powell and News Framing of Climate Policy in the Nineteenth-Century Press

Abstract

In 1890, John Wesley Powell launched a plan to reshape land use polices in the western United States. His proposal, grounded in science, sought to protect vulnerable water rights and garnered US press attention for eight months. Using qualitative historical analysis combined with quantitative content analysis to examine the story frames used by 281 newspapers in some 798 articles covering the debate over Powell’s proposal, this study fills a conspicuous gap in researchers’ understandings of the history of climate coverage in the US. It discovers that news coverage overwhelmingly focused on a political conflict frame that deemphasized the substance both of Powell’s proposal and the alternatives offered by his opponents. Finally, it illustrates the usefulness of applying contemporary frames to historical questions and highlights the partisan sectional identity dominant in the American West in the 1890s.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jonathan Thompson, “A Megadrought Is Hurting Colorado Farmers,” 5280, October 1, 2021, https://www.5280.com/2021/10/a-megadrought-is-hurting-colorado-farmers/.

2 A. Park Williams, Benjamin I. Cook, and Jason E. Smerdon, “Rapid Intensification of the Emerging Southwestern North American Megadrought in 2020–2021,” Nature Climate Change 12, no. 3 (March 2022): 232–34, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01290-z. According to the United States Drought Monitor, as of March 2022 more than 20 percent of land in the Western states was classified as experiencing exceptional or extreme drought and much of the rest of the West is experiencing severe drought. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, “Drought in the Western United States,” April 28, 2022, https://www.ers.usda.gov/newsroom/trending-topics/drought-in-the-western-united-states/#:∼:text=According%20to%20the%20USDM%2C%20on,in%20the%20region%20since%202000.

3 “Major John Wesley Powell.” Photograph. c1890. From Library of Congress: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004672794 (accessed January 30, 2024).

4 Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), 111.

5 John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, With a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah, With Maps, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1879).

6 Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 11; Donald Worster, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Oxford University Press, 2001), 3.

7 Worster, A River Running West, 76.

8 Worster, A River Running West, 80.

9 Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 17.

10 Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 111–13.

11 Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 114.

12 Vanessa Murphree, “Public Relations, 1900–Present,” in The Media in America: A History, ed. William David Sloan, Tracy Lucht, and Erika Pribanic-Smith, 11th ed. (Northport, AL: Vision Press, 2020), 449–66.

13 Marcia L. Thomas, John Wesley Powell: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004), 53; John Wesley Powell, “The Cañons of the Colorado,” Scribner’s Monthly IX, no. 3 (January 1875); John Wesley Powell, “The Cañons of the Colorado,” Scribner’s Monthly IX, no. 4 (February 1875); John Wesley Powell, “The Cañons of the Colorado,” Scribner’s Monthly IX, no. 5 (March 1875); John Wesley Powell, “The Ancient Province of Tusayan,” Scribner’s Monthly XI, no. 2 (December 1875); John Wesley Powell, “An Overland Trip to the Grand Cañon,” Scribner’s Monthly X, no. 6 (October 1875).

14 Powell, Report on the Land, 30.

15 “Arid Lands,” Wichita Eagle, June 5, 1890.

16 Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 247.

17 Brian Balogh, “Scientific Forestry and the Roots of the Modern American State: Gifford Pinchot’s Path to Progressive Reform,” Environmental History 7, no. 2 (April 2002): 199, https://doi.org/10.2307/3985682; Char Miller, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001).

18 Edgar Simpson, “‘Predatory Interests’ and ‘The Common Man’: Scripps, Pinchot, and the Nascent Environmental Movement, 1908 to 1910,” Journalism History 39, no. 3 (October 1, 2013): 145–55, https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2013.12062911.

19 Bruce J. Schulman, “Governing Nature, Nurturing Government: Resource Management and the Development of the American State, 1900-1912,” Journal of Policy History 17, no. 4 (October 2005): 375–403.

20 Simpson, “‘Predatory Interests’ and ‘The Common Man’”; Mark Neuzil and William Kovarik, Mass Media and Environmental Conflict: America’s Green Crusades (SAGE Publications, 1996).

21 Phillip J. Hutchison, “Journalism and the Perfect Heat Wave: Assessing the Reportage of North America’s Worst Heat Wave, July–August 1936,” American Journalism 25, no. 1 (January 1, 2008): 31–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2008.10678091; Aaron T. Phillips, “‘Wild Horse Annie’ Rides on Washington: Mythical Characterization in Newspaper Coverage of Wild Horse Advocacy,” American Journalism 33, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 43–60, https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2015.1134974; Phillip J. Hutchison, “When Elm Street Became Treeless: Journalistic Coverage of Dutch Elm Disease, 1930–80,” Journalism History 38, no. 2 (July 1, 2012): 100–109, https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2012.12062878; Ken J. Ward, “Nexus of Naturalists: Sharing Nature in the Columbus Dispatch Column of Edward Sinclair Thomas,” Ohio History 127, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 92–113; Susan E. Swanberg, “‘The Way of the Rain’: Towards a Conceptual Framework for the Retrospective Examination of Historical American and Australian ‘Rain Follows the Plow/Plough’ Messages,” International Review of Environmental History 5, no. 2 (November 2019): 67–95.

22 Robert M. Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (December 1993): 52; Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1974); Paul D’Angelo and Jim A. Kuypers, “Introduction: Doing News Framing Analysis,” in Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, ed. Paul D’Angelo and Jim A. Kuypers (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2009), 2.

23 Michael A. Cacciatore, Dietram A. Scheufele, and Shanto Iyengar, “The End of Framing as We Know It … and the Future of Media Effects,” Mass Communication and Society 19, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 15, https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2015.1068811.

24 Matthew C. Nisbet, “Knowledge Into Action: Framing the Debates Over Climate Change and Poverty,” in Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, ed. Paul D’Angelo and Jim A. Kuypers (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2009), 46.

25 Saffron O’Neill et al., “Dominant Frames in Legacy and Social Media Coverage of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report,” Nature Climate Change 5, no. 4 (April 2015): 2–3 (supplement), https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2535.

26 Mike S. Schäfer and Saffron O’Neill, “Frame Analysis in Climate Change Communication,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science, September 26, 2017, 6, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.487.

27 Sofiene Mallouli and Michael S. Sweeney, “The Framing of North Africans by U.S. Print Media during Operation Torch in World War II,” Journalism History 45, no. 1 (March 29, 2019): 61–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2019.1574179; Melita M. Garza, “Framing Mexicans in Great Depression Editorials: Alien Riff-Raff to Heroes,” American Journalism 34, no. 1 (January 2, 2017): 26–48, https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2016.1275216; Sid Bedingfield, “John H. McCray, Accommodationism, and the Framing of the Civil Rights Struggle in South Carolina, 1940–48,” Journalism History 37, no. 2 (July 1, 2011): 91–101, https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2011.12062848; Brandon Storlie, “‘We’ll Burn the Whole Stinking Town Down’: Newspaper Coverage of Detroit’s Twelfth Street Riot,” Journalism History 46, no. 4 (October 1, 2020): 287–300, https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2020.1787778.

28 “About Newspapers.com,” Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/about.

29 “Kansas Digital Newspapers,” Kansas Historical Society, https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-digital-newspaper-program/16126.

30 Porismita Borah, “Conceptual Issues in Framing Theory: A Systematic Examination of a Decade’s Literature,” Journal of Communication 61, no. 2 (April 2011): 246–63.

31 Goffman, Frame Analysis, 21.

32 Borah, “Conceptual Issues in Framing Theory,” 8; Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media In The Making and Unmaking Of The New Left (Berkely: University of California Press, 1980).

33 Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” 52.

34 Borah, “Conceptual Issues in Framing Theory.”

35 Entman, “Framing.”

36 O’Neill et al., “Dominant Frames in Legacy and Social Media Coverage of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.”

37 The frames are conceptualized as: political conflict frames focus on the identification, explanation, or contextualization of conflict between two or more actors in a political arena, the “conflict” can represent oppositional arguments on the same issue and do not encompass untoward, unfair, or personal attacks or accusations of criminality; political controversy frames focus on extremes in political discourse escalation, including the presence of untoward or unfair personal insults and mudslinging, salacious statements or allegations, and claims of self-aggrandizement and criminality, or an allegation of explicit unethical or illegal behavior; political process frames focus on the legal or political process or proceedings, or address whether or not something is procedurally viable or not; economic importance frames stress the importance of acting for/against Powell’s proposal for economic or financial reasons in a neutral fashion; economic consequence frames focus on the financial factor but add a value statement either positive or negative, and the driving force is about potential economic effects of action/inaction; economic exploitation frames focus on the claim/accusation that an actor/agency is using or trying to get access to government or public funds for personal or corporate benefit—taking action for untoward economic motivation; and science frames focus on the scientific evidence, methodology, process, or outcome of an issue as a primary focus of the article.

38 Intercoder reliability was tested using a chance sample of eighty-two articles, accounting for 820 data points. A percentage agreement analysis found 87 percent agreement among the two coders, indicating a high level of reliability. A crosstab analysis using Cohen’s Kappa was run for verification, which produced a kappa value of .64 with a standard error of .032, an approximate t of 18.3, and a p less than .001, which, combined with the high percent agreement, is acceptable for qualitative or mixed-methods analysis. See Cliodhna O’Connor and Helene Joffe, “Intercoder Reliability in Qualitative Research: Debates and Practical Guidelines,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 19 (January 2020): 1–13.

39 US Census Bureau, Apportionments, Tables for States and Territories and Counties, 1890, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1895/dec/volume-1.html; Frederick Jackson Turner, “Problems in American History,” The Significance of Sections in American History (Henry Holt and Co., 1932), 8. The geographic regions were coded as 1 for North Atlantic (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania); 2 for South Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida); 3 for North Central (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas); 4 for South Central (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas); and 5 for Western (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California).

40 These phases were coded as follows: 1—Early Posturing, January 1, 1890 through April 2, 1890; 2—Early Fight, April 3 through May 8; 3—Mature Fight, May 9 through June 5; 4—Fisticuffs, June 6 through July 6; 5—Unified West, July 7 through July 25; 6—Support in the House, July 26 through August 1; 7—Quiet Defeat, August 2 through 31.

41 Catherine Kohler Riessman, “Narrative Analysis,” in Narrative, Memory & Everyday Life, ed. Nancy Kelly et al. (Huddersfield, GB: University of Huddersfield, 2005), 1–7.

42 Kevin F. Gotham and William G. Staples, “Narrative Analysis and the New Historical Sociology,” Sociological Quarterly 37, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 481–501.

43 “Congress at Work Again,” Downs (Kansas) Globe, January 4, 1890.

44 “Our Arid Territory,” Arkansas City (Kansas) Traveler, January 7, 1890.

45 “Congressional,” Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Evening Gazette, January 22, 1890; “Powell on Irrigation,” Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, February 18, 1890.

46 “Winning Ways of a Widow,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Times, February 22, 1890.

47 “The Arid Lands Proposition,” Stockton (CA) Daily Mail, February 24, 1890; “Board of Trade,” Reno (Nevada) Evening Gazette, January 13, 1890.

48 David L. Caffey, Chasing the Santa Fe Ring: Power and Privilege in Territorial New Mexico (Albuquerque: University Press of New Mexico, 2014), 137, 224–25, 243.

49 “The senate committee on irrigation of arid lands …” Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, February 15, 1890; see also “Irrigation in New Mexico,” Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, February 1, 1890; “The only really practicable irrigation measure yet …” Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, March 29, 1890.

50 “The Irrigation Legislation,” St. Louis (MO) Globe-Democrat, April 2, 1890.

51 “No Money for Irrigation,” Fort Worth (TX) Daily Gazette, April 6, 1890.

52 “Plumb’s Protege, Minneapolis (MN) Tribune, April 30, 1890.

53 “Plumb vs. Powell,” Los Angeles Evening Express, May 3, 1890.

54 Turner, “The Significance of the Section in American History,” 22–51.

55 “Something Unlooked For,” Arizona Champion (Peach Springs, AZ), May 3, 1890.

56 “The Western Senators …” South Haven (KS) New Era, April 12, 1890.

57 “The Fight on Irrigation,” Salt Lake Daily Tribune, April 18, 1890.

58 “Water in the West,” Salt Lake Herald, April 11, 1890; “For the Living Present,” Daily Huronite (Huron, SD), April 11, 1890.

59 “Our Washington Letter,” Muncie (IN) Daily Times, May 7, 1890.

60 “Major Powell has devoted much thought …” Morning Oregonian (Portland, OR), April 14, 1890.

61 These articles were excluded from formal analysis in this research to avoid the project growing unwieldy, but they warrant attention as an attempt by Powell to manage the conversation around his proposals. John Wesley Powell, “The Irrigable Lands of the Arid Region,” Century Magazine, March 1890; John Wesley Powell, “The Non-Irrigable Lands of the Arid Region,” Century Magazine, April 1890; John Wesley Powell, “Institutions for the Arid Lands,” Century Magazine, May 1890.

62 Bell, C. M., photographer. “Hon. W. M. Stewart.” Photograph. Washington, D.C. From Library of Congress: C.M. Bell Studio Collection. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016688646/ (accessed January 30, 2024).

63 “Arid Lands,” San Francisco Call, May 8, 1890.

64 “The Irrigation Fight,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 12, 1890.

65 “Senator Stewart Very Warm,” Kansas City (MO) Star, May 29, 1890.

66 “Senator Stewart and Major Powell are exchanging irrigation sentiments …” Omaha Daily Bee, May 31, 1890.

67 Russel R. Elliott, Servant of Power: A Political Biography of Senator William M. Stewart (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1983), 115–17.

68 Elliott, Servant of Power, 75–82.

69 “Irrigation Problem,” Daily Morning Astorian (Astoria, OR), May 29, 1890.

70 “Maj. Powell’s Charges,” Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1890.

71 “To rob the government …” Portage (WI) Daily Democrat, May 21, 1890.

72 “New Coins for Uncle Sam,” Brooklyn Times, May 31, 1890.

73 “The Irrigation Surveys,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 25, 1890.

74 “The absolute dictation of Major Powell …” Jamestown (ND) Alert, June 5, 1890.

75 “Too Much Science,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 1890.

76 “From hints received from headquarters …” Salt Lake Tribune, May 10, 1890; “D. B. Douglas, a Utah banker …” Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1890.

77 “The Irrigation Bill,” Sacramento Record-Union, June 5, 1890; Vandever also mentioned in Everett W. Sterling, “The Powell Irrigation Survey, 1888–1893,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27, no. 3 (December 1940): 421–34.

78 “The Irrigation Bill,” Sacramento (CA) Record-Union.

79 “Arid Lands,” Wichita (KS) Eagle, June 5, 1890.

80 “Irrigation Improvements,” Rutland (VT) Daily Herald, June 12, 1890; “The Question of Reference,” San Francisco Examiner, June 21, 1890.

81 “Proceedings of the Senate,” Buffalo (NY) Courier, June 21, 1890; “The Doings in Congress,” Champaign Daily Gazette, June 21, 1890.

82 “The Fight Against Major Powell,” Indianapolis Journal, June 10, 1890.

83 “Political News,” Washington D.C. Critic, June 11, 1890.

84 “Senator Stewart of Nevada,” Stockton (CA) Mail, June 24, 1890.

85 “Old, But Still in the Ring,” Pittsburgh (PA) Post, June 13, 1890; “Age and Avoirdupois,” Los Angeles Herald, June 13, 1890.

86 “Old, But Still in the Ring,” Pittsburgh (PA) Post.

87 “Powell and Settlers’ Rights,” Washington DC Evening Star, June 12, 1890; “Reclaiming the Desert,” Lawrence (KS) Daily Record, July 3, 1890.

88 “It is downright funny …” Santa Fe New Mexican, June 16, 1890; “Foolish Major Powell,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 6, 1890.

89 “To the Residents of Haskell and Southwest Counties of Kansas,” Topeka (KS) Advocate, June 18, 1890.

90 “The Irrigation Question,” Omaha (NE) Daily Bee, July 7, 1890; “The members of the Davenport Academy of Sciences …” Davenport (IA) Democrat, July 26, 1890.

91 “Senator Spooner on Powell,” Santa Fe New Mexican, July 21, 1890.

92 “On the first page of the Argus …” Eddy Argus (NM), July 19, 1890.

93 “The Mail wishes to direct attention …” Stockton (CA) Mail, July 21, 1890.

94 For example, “Congressional,” Reno (NV) Evening Gazette, July 16, 1890.

95 See quantitative findings below.

96 “A Setback for Irrigation,” San Francisco Morning Call, July 20, 1890.

97 “National Capital,” Sacramento (CA) Union, July 20, 1890.

98 “Powell Defeated,” San Francisco Call, July 19, 1890.

99 “The Arid Belt,” Spokane (WA) Falls Review, July 26, 1890.

100 “A Senatorial Wrangle,” Allentown (PA) Critic, August 1, 1890.

101 “The Irrigation Question, Seattle (WA) Post-Intelligencer, July 31, 1890.

102 “As to Irrigation,” Bismarck (ND) Daily Tribune, August 2, 1890.

103 “Against the West,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 24, 1890; “Geological Survey,” Salt Lake Herald, August 24, 1890; “The Geological Survey,” Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1890.

104 “A Practical Man Talks,” Santa Fe New Mexican, August 12, 1890; “An Unfortunate Thing for the West,” Santa Fe New Mexican, August 19, 1890.

105 It is mentioned in “Water Supply,” Oakes (ND) Republican, August 29, 1890; and “Irrigation Legislation,” Santa Fe New Mexican, August 29, 1890.

106 Full results for each frame are as follows: Political Conflict 44 percent (n = 351); Science 25.4 percent (n = 203); Political Process 21.6 percent (n = 172); Political Controversy 18.7 percent (n = 149); Economic Exploitation 16.5 percent (n = 132); Economic Importance 7.9 percent (n = 63); and Economic Consequences 4 percent (n = 32).

107 Gaye Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978), 91; Michael Schudson, The Sociology of News, second edition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), 44.

108 O’Neill et al., “Dominant Frames in Legacy and Social Media Coverage of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.”

109 Nisbet, “Knowledge Into Action,” 46.

110 Nibset, “Knowledge Into Action,” 46.

111 Ken Ward, “Section and Silver: Editorial Representations of Political Regionalism and Bimetallism in the Cripple Creek Mining District Press, 1896–1904,” (Master’s thesis, Wichita State University, 2011), 99.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ken J. Ward

Ken J. Ward is an assistant professor of Multimedia Journalism in the Communication Department at Pittsburg State University in Kansas. He earned his Ph.D. at Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, his master’s at Wichita State University, and his bachelor’s at Bethel College, Kansas. His research focuses on the journalism history of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States.

Aaron Atkins

Aaron Atkins is an assistant professor of Digital Media and Journalism in the Communication Department at Weber State University in Utah. He earned his master's degree at Virginia Tech and his Ph.D. at Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. His research frequently explores the intersections of journalism, history, media, and technology.