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Home > News & Events > CLA Today Archive > Summer 2004 : Rewriting the Mississippi

Rewriting the Mississippi

by Karin Winegar

“Mark Twain locked the history of the Mississippi into its adolescence,” says historian John Anfinson. "Thanks to him, books about [the river] were limited to colloquial folklore, humor, satire, folk history, and travel, as if history quit when the steamboat era went away. But a lot of important history of the Mississippi can influence the current debate about where the river is going.”

As National Park Service Historian for the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), Anfinson amply fills that historical gap in his new book, The River We Have Wrought: A History of the Upper Mississippi (U of Minnesota Press). The river winding through the narrative is a Mississippi of proliferating locks and dams that interrupt the natural pulse that once sustained wetlands and nourished fish, wildlife, and people.

Anfinson (B.A. '77, anthropology; M.A. '81, Ph.D.'87, history) was raised in Benson, Minn., with five siblings, all of whom attended the U. He wanted to be an ecologist, but math, chemistry, and biology didn't come naturally to him. History, anthropology, and Native American culture did.

“At the U, I tried to take everything you are supposed to take—‘practical things'—but I didn't have a quantitative mind,” he admits. He began to find his footing when he took Russ Menard's American history survey class.

“Russ took a big-picture view,” says Anfinson. "He said you need to begin with an argument, and marshal dates, places, and people to serve your argument. It drove students nuts: when he gave an essay exam he'd say there are no right answers. You just have to present an argument and support it. He made history click—it made sense to me.”

Stephen Gudeman's anthropology course "flipped another switch,” says Anfinson. "He influenced me to think about other cultures in relation to Western culture. He showed that individuals and communities have unique mental maps of the world and behave according to those maps.”

For the boy from Benson, the U was a world that would forever alter his own world map. "My first roommates were both African American, and both from suburban Detroit,” Anfinson recalls. "The next guy was from Korea, a student in architecture. My family gave me an understanding of their world, but at the U I got a quick introduction to the broader world.”

The times shaped his life as well: Anfinson entered the U as the Vietnam war was ending. A new global political and social consciousness had taken root on campus. "The political engagement of students and the faculty in world issues and environmental issues got me thinking socially and politically,” he says. Still an idealist, he adds, "I wanted to do something with social significance.”

Understanding and applying history to environmental preservation efforts, he finds, has met that criterion.

“When we look at the Mississippi River, who had the greatest influence on what we think of it? Writers, painters, and the humanities,” says Anfinson. "Why would that be any different today than it is historically? So historians and writers have to take control of the image of the river and not just leave it to those from the past.”

Now when he speaks to U agriculture, meteorology, or fish and wildlife classes, Anfinson teaches the big picture of the big river. "What have we done to the Mississippi in the name of agriculture?" he asks. "Can you have sustainable agriculture if it degrades the river? It may seem sustainable on land, but we need to look beyond the land, to the river and the tributaries it impacts as well.”

Bringing his historical perspective to public policy, Anfinson can help literally to shape the course of cities: In his job as historian for the National Park Service, he constantly reviews development projects proposed for the 72-mile Mississippi corridor constituting the MNRRA. "For example, there's a magical cove downstream off the main channel and behind an island with ancient rock bluffs and a little prairie,” he says. "There's a proposal for a 2,200 unit housing development around it. My job is to address the cultural and historical impact of development.”

Thanks to his understanding of Native American history, Anfinson has made his own mark on that history as well. In a previous job with the St. Paul District Corps of Engineers, he negotiated with 24 Native groups the return of land in the Kickapoo River Valley.

“When I look back now, I realize I could have been an environmental historian from the start, if there had been such a thing,” he says. Reflecting on the course of his career, he adds, "What's important is that I got where I wanted to be.”