I. Wilderness Preservation

A. Characterized by turn-of-the-century preservationist movement oriented to saving wild lands and reversing changes induced by resource industrialism and urbanization. Human factors tending towards the preservation and maintenance of ecosystems.

B. Factors influencing perservation

1. Population: Industrial revolution (early stages in 1820s, accelerating in 1870s) draws people from rural to urban areas. Cities and urban industries grow rapidly, with associated water and air pollution and landscape degradation. Slums grow. Preservationist movement is urban reaction to commercialization and industrialization.

2. Market: Cities provide new markets for commercial industries based on capital and wage-labor economic organization. Monopolies and trusts grow. Industrialization results in exploitation of resources.

3. Technology: A reaction arises: Machine are destroying the garden: meat-packing technologies are slaughtering cattle; industrial technologies are degrading human workers and altering human psyche.

4. Social Relations: Government agencies and citizens' organizations are supporting preservation.

a. Government Agencies: National Park Service in Department of Interior created by National Parks Act in 1916 to administer separately created and administered national parks (1862-1916).

b. Citizens groups and movements

(1) Women's Organizations

(a) General Federation of Women's Clubs (1890)

(b) Women's National Rivers and Harbors Congress (1908)

(c) Daughters of the American Revolution Committee on Conservation (1909)

(2) Civic Improvement Organizations: American Civic Association (1900)

(3) Youth Organizations

(a) Sons of Daniel Boone (1905)

(b) Boy Pioneers (1905)

(c) Boy Scouts (1907)

(4) Outdoor movement

(a) Appalachian Mountain Club (1876)

(b) Boone and Crocket Club (1885)

(c) New York Audubon Society (1886)

(d) Sierra Club (1892)

(e) Mazamas, Portland Oregon (1894)

(f) Campfire Club of America (1897)

(g) National Audubon Society (1905)

(5) Historic preservation movement: American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society

(6) Country Life Movement: Country Life Commission (1908)

5. Attitudes: Physical, intellectual, and spiritual renewal is emphasized as antidote to frustrations of civilization. Aesthetics of natural scenery and wilderness improve the quality of human life. Examples: Frederick Law Olmsted, Robert Underwood Johnson, John Muir, Mary Austin, and others. Railroads promote tourism for middle class. Wilderness redefined as a resource for human recreation and appreciation, but as void of permanent human (including Indian) habitation. Chief Luther Standing Bear (1933) states that land is wild only to whites; to Indians it is bountiful and blessed. Wilderness Act (1964) defines wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

1. What rationale does Frederick Law Olmsted give for the preservation of parks? Why did the railroads wish to preserve national parks? What were some other reasons for preservation?

2. What is wild? What is a wilderness? How has the concept of wilderness changed over the course of American history? How did American Indians view wilderness? Is the concept of wilderness ethnocentric?

3. What are some of the values of wilderness according to Roderick Nash? What social groups were excluded from the wilderness experience at the turn of the century? In what ways has this availability changed?

4. Compare and contrast Isabella Bird's response to nature in the Rockies with the lumber industry's response to the California Redwoods. Did or could lumberers appreciate the beauty of the forest?

5. In what ways and for what reasons does Mary Austin find the desert remarkable? Should deserts be preserved? Why?

6. Examine the development of a Romantic-aesthetic strain of nature appreciation in America during the 19th century. How are American romanticism, transcendentalism, and conservation exemplified in the ideas of John Muir?

7. Give reasons why the conservation and preservation sentiments of the late 19th century arose when and where they did. Why do many preservationists, both past and present, regard their environmental values as "non-negotiable"? Is this a useful attitude?

8. Is there a tendency in this country to equate the rustic and pioneer life with masculine virility? What environmental problems might arise from such a view?