Working for Health in the Anthropocene: The Environmental Imagination in the Establishment of Occupational Therapy, 1890–1920

By the end of the nineteenth century, the view of labour as control of the environment for human benefit was being re-evaluated. In the United States, the conservation movement of the Progressive era (1890–1920) brought new attention to the problem of the ‘wise use’ of resources. Progressive social movements also developed a concern with holistic health and social conditions in rapidly industrialising cities. This paper argues that the formation of the new allied health science of occupational therapy in the early 20th century can be understood as a response to the health and conservation implications of changing relations between labour and resources. An analysis of published sources on the aims of occupational therapy in the Progressive era concluded that the early stage of the profession was structured by dominant Western narratives about humans and nature. Those narratives included the trope of redemption or transformation through labour and the importance of conservation as a response to the squandering of resources, both natural and human. I argue that the early development of occupational therapy was significantly influenced by environmentalist discourse as a therapeutic response to industrialisation and emerging Anthropocene awareness.