Progressive
Conservation
Earth, Wind,
and Fire
The outdoor
craze
± Rise of Vacations, 1869: Camping
° Summer youth camps
± Old West craze
° Owen Wister & Frederick Remington
± Boy Scouts of America, 1910
± Jack London: Call of the Wild, 1903
± Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan, 1912
Wildlife
conservation
± Game rapidly disappears
° Passenger pigeon & buffalo
± Elite Eastern hunting clubs
° Theodore Roosevelt
± William Temple Hornaday, Washington Zoo
° Our Vanishing Wildlife, 1913
National
Forests and Parks
± Presbyterian-raised conservationists
° Fiercely protective of common good against selfish greed
± Benjamin Harrison and John Noble, 1889–1893
° Sequoia National Park, 1890, protecting world’s largest trees
° Yosemite National Park, 1890
±
State mismanagement of state park; watershed
damage
±
John Muir: Yosemite National Park, with
Hetch Hetchy
° Sierra Club, 1892
° Forest Reserve Act, 1891
±
Harrison & Noble create 15 with 13
million acres
More Parks
and Forests
± Army oversees both parks and forest reserves
± Grover Cleveland and Hoke Smith, 1893–1897
° Creates 17 forest reserves with 27 million acres
° Congress opposes; approves commercial use, 1897
Progressive
Conservation
± Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09)
° 5 new National Parks
° Adds 100,000,000 acres in 118 reserves
° Antiquities Act 1906: 18 National Monuments
° 51 bird reserves, 4 game preserves
± Gifford Pinchot
° Scientific management
° First chief of Forest Service
±
“National Forests,” 1905
° Successes: PR & professional foresters
° “Conservation”: greatest good for greatest number for
greatest length of time
Reclamation
± Irrigating arid Western lands
± Reclamation Act, 1902
° 160-acre limit
±
Widely ignored; speculation
± Los Angeles steals Owens Lake for a water supply, 1913
Hydroelectric
power and the Parks
± The case for cheap public power
± Battles
° Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park, 1913
± Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Lane, 1913–1921
° National Park Service, 1916; Stephen Mather, director
° 8 new National Parks