Title: Reading Check 9: Conservation and Reclamation
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 11 · November 2–6, 2026: Conservation, Reclamation, Extraction, and Tourism

Q: What is concealed when park creation is narrated as saving uninhabited wilderness?
- Indigenous residence and displacement
- The number of maps created for tourists
- The formal age of the managing agency
- Annual totals for recreational visitation
A: Indigenous residence and displacement

Q: Federal reclamation projects primarily sought to do what?
- End agricultural settlement in dry regions
- Store and redirect water for development
- Remove federal authority from the West
- Restore every river to precolonial conditions
A: Store and redirect water for development

Q: Which question best analyzes the term “public land”?
- How many characters form the phrase
- Whether the phrase appears in bold type
- Which public governs and who is excluded
- Whether every map repeats the same label
A: Which public governs and who is excluded

Q: Name one piece of evidence from this unit and explain how its creator, audience, or collection context affects how a historian may use it.

Q: Make a one-sentence claim answering this unit question: When reformers called western land “public,” whose uses and histories became illegible? Then identify one limitation, uncertainty, or counterexample that keeps the claim from becoming too broad.