On our more expansive website, Hypercommon.com, we created a section just for Dams. Research on the two big Osage River dams (Bagnell and Harry S. Truman Dam) led us to considering the role of dams – i.e. huge public works projects that speak to the masses/electorate of the power and progress of the political forces who build them. They prove man’s mastery (for a time perhaps) over nature and the forces of relentlessly moving water. They create jobs (short term) and remodel landscape, to the benefit of some and the great detriment of others.
We pondered another, larger project examining dams worldwide and their relationship to the politics of power and money – as evidenced in the materials left behind, the ephemera of propaganda. To explore this idea after the completion of Damming the Osage, we kept collecting, searching out the souvenirs and show pieces of dams worldwide both built and only proposed.
One of our initial finds was this photograph showing Louis Egan, former president of union Electric, heading to federal prison after being sentenced under the corrupt practices act. It would have made it into Damming the Osage if we’d had it when still working on the book.
Click on this link to read the full post: “The Fall of Union Electric’s Louis Egan.”