Remembering Del-Aware: Community Activism and Eco-Politics in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the Age of Reagan
This thesis tells the previously untold story of how environmental activists in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in the 1980s waged a nearly decade-long and ultimately losing battle against a plan to pump water from the free-flowing Delaware River. As a case study of grassroots community activism during the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan, the struggle known locally as “Dump the Pump” and spearheaded by a nonprofit organization called Del-AWARE supports and provides a regional take on recent scholarship that has illuminated the vibrant underlying dynamics of local civic engagement occurring amid the overshadowing political conservatism of the Reagan years. Also a case study in public history, this thesis demonstrates how collective historical memory fueled not only Del-AWARE’s protracted struggle, but its enduring legacy in public policy and community life. It concludes with suggestions for preserving the history of Del-AWARE before it is lost forever.
History, Public policy, Environmental studies, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, Community activism, Delaware River, Del-aware unlimited, Environmentalism, Public history
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