Tracing Vanport: Environmental Justice, Displacement, and the Reconstruction of a “Lost City”

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Uwe Lübken
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 505184602

Vanport was built in 1942/43 between the city limits of Portland, Oregon, and the Columbia River to house up to 40,000 workers who had flocked to the region to work for the wartime industries. Within a short period of time, Vanport became the biggest housing project in the entire United States and the second biggest city in Oregon. Due to its demographic structure, Vanport also became by far the largest African American community in Oregon. When on May 30, 1948, a makeshift levee collapsed that had been designed to protect the city against Columbia River floods, the short history of Vanport came to an end. The settlement was never rebuilt, its inhabitants had to find accommodation in nearby Portland or move to other parts of the U.S.The long history of Vanport, however, only begun after the catastrophe. Despite the official neglect the city continued to exist in various ways and by now has gained an importance that surpasses the mere remembering of a drowned place. Vanport has become a symbol for diversity, the unequal distribution of environmental risk, and resistance against structural racism. Yet contrary to the recent memory boom, there is a significant dearth of historical scholarship on Vanport.This project traces Vanport’s history on four levels. The first part will be dedicated to the everyday life of Vanport’s citizens during the six years of the city’s existence, i.e. how Vanporters have lived and worked, how they spent their leisure time and raised kids. The analysis of Vanport’s multi-ethnic and diverse society will be carried out against the backdrop of a de facto segregated state (Oregon) and city (Portland). The second focal point of this project will be both the experience of migration to Vanport and displacement after the flood of 1948. Thirdly, the history of remembering and forgetting Vanport will be addressed and finally, the long history of the site itself will be scrutinized – including its environmental characteristics, indigenous appropriations, transformations by the settler society and its history after the flood.„Tracing Vanport“ thus is the first project that looks at the history of this peculiar place in its complex entirety and temporal depth. It will illuminate the many connections between environmental (in)justice, processes of displacement, and the memory of catastrophe – highly relevant and important topics in times of climate crisis, structural racism, and gentrification.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants