CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS AND PEOPLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIONENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT 1799-2001

Historical Analyst Washington Office USDA Forest Service June 12, 2001 The following chronology and brief explanatory discussions were derived from manysources: The Library of Congress w

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS AND PEOPLE

IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN CONSERVATION/ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

1799-2001

Gerald W Williams, Ph.D.

Historical Analyst Washington Office USDA Forest Service

June 12, 2001

The following chronology and brief explanatory discussions were derived from manysources: The Library of Congress web site “Documented Chronology of SelectedEvents in the Development of the American Conservation Movement, 1847-1920”;

Samuel Trask Dana’s Forest and Range Policy: Its Development in the United States (1956); Samuel Trask Dana and Sally K Fairfax’s Forest and Range Policy: Its

Development in the United States - 2nd edition of Dana’s 1956 classic (1980); Richard C

Davis (ed.) Encyclopedia of American Forest and Conservation History (1983) in two volumes; Bernhard E Fernow’s Report Upon the Forestry Investigations 1877-1898

(1899); Chris McGrory Klyza’s “Land Protection in the United States, 1864-1997" (Wild

Earth, Vol 8, #2 [Summer 1998]: 35-42); Harold K Steen The U.S Forest Service: A History (1976); USDA Forest Service’s “Highlights in the History of Forest Conservation”

(1976); and other sources

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS AND PEOPLE

IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN

CONSERVATION/ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

1799-2001

1799 The Federal Timber Purchasers Act of February 25th (1 Stat 622) appropriates

$200,000 to buy timber and timberland for naval purposes.Blackbeard’s and Grover’s Islands off the Georgia are purchased.These are the first federal purchases of timbered land forgovernment use

1803 The Louisiana Purchase on April 30th (8 Stat 200) adds around 828,000 square

miles (523 million acres) between the Mississippi River and theRocky Mountains to the public domain

1805 The first overland expedition to explore the new Louisiana Territory all the way to

the Pacific Ocean is sent by President Thomas Jefferson On May

14, 1805, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St.Louis, MO, with 31 men including York (Capt Clark's slave) andSacajawea (wife of Touissant Charbonneau, interpreter) Duringtheir travels, they wrote journals, explored, and made maps of thenew part of the United States They arrive at the mouth of theColumbia River, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, on December

Louis on September 23, 1806 Soon, the western movement oftrappers/fur traders, missionaries, miners, ranchers, and settlersbegan arriving to stake a claim to the new territory

1807 Act of March 3rd forbids anyone to settle on or occupy the public lands until

authorized by law U.S marshals are authorized to removetrespassers and to use measures to ensure compliance with thelaw

1812 The General Land Office is established in the Treasury Department on April 25th

(2 Stat 716) The major work of the new agency is to sell or grantthe huge public domain land to settlers, miners, railroadcorporations, wagon road companies, etc

1817 Act of March 1, 1817 (3 Stat 347), renews the 1799 act (above), directs the

President to reserve live oak or cedar timbered public lands thatmay have use for the U.S Navy Under this act, 19,000 acres arereserved on Commissioners, Cypress, and Six Islands in Louisiana.The live oak lands are administered by the Navy Department

1819 Florida purchase on March 3rd adds 43 million acres to the public domain (3 Stat.

523)

1822 Congress passes an act for “the preservation of timber of the United States in

Florida,” that is intended to prevent the theft and destruction ofgovernment-owned timber

1825 Following extensive logging and land clearing for farms, two huge forest fires,

known as the Miramichi and Piscataquis fires, burn perhaps 3million acres in Maine and New Brunswick Late in the century,many gigantic fires will burn in the Lake States

1827 The Federal Timber Reservation Act of March 3rd (4 Stat 242) establishes the

Santa Rosa live oak timber reserve near Pensacola, Florida, for theexclusive use by the Navy This is the first federal timberlandreservation that is used for forestry purposes 30,000 acres of theSanta Rosa peninsula (that extends into the Bay of Pensacola) isintended to be the first forest experiment station with planting liveoaks, clearing brush, creating fire breaks, and keeping trespassersout, but the idea becomes a political issue and is dropped by 1832

1828 The Naval Appropriations Act approves spending not more than $100,000 to

purchase land necessary for the continuous supply of live oak andother timber for the Navy This is spent on the Santa Rosa navaltimber reserve and experiment station Henry M Brackenridge, in

a letter to Secretary Southard of the Navy Department, discussesthe culturing of live oak This is one of the first American papers onsilviculture

1830 State of Missouri petitions Congress to grant the state a township of land to

experiment with planting and growing of trees The petition isturned down, but the idea is kept alive

1831 The Timber Trespass Act of March 2nd (4 Stat 472), relating to the live oak and

other timber reservations, becomes the basis for present-day lawfor the prevention of timber trespass on federal land Fines fortimber trespass will be not less than three times the value of thetimber cut

1832 D J Browne publishes The Sylva Americana This is the first compilation of the

description of forest trees in the United States This book proves to

be influential in the understanding of trees and forest for theAmerican public in the years to come

The hot springs together with four sections of surrounding land inArkansas are reserved by the federal government from homestead

or mining entry

1840s Beginning slightly before 1840, the U.S Government authorizes a scientific

expedition to sail around the world Lt Charles Wilkes and hisparty left the United States via ship, sailing around the tip of SouthAmerica, exploring the Pacific Northwest and northern California,then sailing westward across the Pacific Ocean and around the rest

of the globe (1838-1843) This is the first scientific expedition–theU.S Exploring Expedition ever outfitted by the U.S The multi-volumes of travels and science, including wonderful illustrations ofplaces, animals and plants, and people that they encountered, arepublished and create a sensation across the country The artifactsfrom the journey are placed with the Smithsonian in Washington,

DC

1841 Preemption Act of September 4th (5 Stat 453) allows settlers to purchase public

domain land before auctions Also, citizens over 21 can settle on

160 acres of public domain land subject to certain restrictions Theland can be purchased for $1.25 per acre

1843 Reservations of live oak lands in Louisiana are opened for settlement The

disposal of live oak reservations continues until 1923

1846 Treaty of June 15th with Great Britain confirms the U.S claim to the Oregon

Territory in present-day Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts ofMontana and Wyoming This adds some 181 million acres to thepublic domain

George Emerson publishes a book entitled: A Report on the Trees

and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts.

Insights from this book set the stage for a fellow New Englander,George Perkins Marsh, to make famous the following year

1847 George Perkins Marsh, a U.S Congressman from Vermont, delivers a seminal

speech to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont,calling attention to the destructive impact of human activity on theland, especially through deforestation, and advocating aconservationist approach to the management of forested lands.Marsh’s speech is published the following year as an “AddressDelivered Before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Sept

30, 1847.”

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo adds 335 million acres to the public domain in

Texas, New Mexico, and California

The American Association for the Advancement of Science isorganized.

1849 The Department of the Interior is established on March 3rd with responsibility for

the public lands This new department incorporates the GeneralLand Office, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Patent Office (9Stat 395-397)

The New York Association for the Protection of Game is founded.This is one of the earliest wildlife conservation organizations in theUnited States

1850s Around the middle of the eighteenth century, European and American literary

figures draw increasing attention to the importance of nature; bynow, in the mid-nineteenth century, travel literature in periodicalsand books joins with this Romantic literary legacy to stimulate abroad popular movement of “nature appreciation.” Throughout theremaining decades of the century, the “nature essay” burgeons as

an American literary genre

Prints, lithographs and engravings of American scenery, especially

in the West, receive wide popular distribution between this decadeand the turn of the century, stimulating broad interest in andappreciation for special qualities of the American landscape,including its wilderness

Throughout the last half of the nineteenth and into the earlytwentieth century, popular interest in ornithology–the study ofbirds proliferates through books, articles, and local clubs, providinggrass-roots base for support of many aspects of conservation.During 1853-1855, the U.S Government authorizes a series of explorations and

surveys to cross through the West searching and exploring possiblerailroad routes across the mountains and plateaus As with thepervious U.S Exploring Expedition, the Pacific Railroad Surveysare composed of military men, scientists, and artist/illustrators Themassive reports are printed in 1860

1850 Purchase from Texas of 79 million acres of public domain land.

First of the many railroad land grants from the public domain to thestate of Illinois, Alabama, and Mississippi to aid the construction ofrailroads in each state The odd-numbered sections of land within

a specified distance from the railroad line are to be sold to settlers

to offset construction costs The last of these huge land grants

came in 1871 to the Texas Pacific Railroad Company Great landfrauds ensue over the next fifty years.

The first federal timber agents are appointed by the Secretary ofthe Interior to protect public timberlands The agents arediscontinued five years later when their duties are added to thedistrict land registers and receivers in the General Land Office

The third edition of the Table Rock Album and Sketches of the

Falls and Scenery Adjacent offers future generations a unique

glimpse of mid-nineteenth-century American’s response tospectacular natural beauty in the form of notations made by tourists

in an album at Niagra Falls

Citing the observations of Alexander von Humboldt and others onthe effects of deforestation, Thomas Ewbank, the United States

Commissioner of Patents, warns in his two-volume Report of the

Commissioner of Patents, for the Year 1849 (House of

Representatives Executive Document No 20) that “the waste of

valuable timber in the United States, to say nothing of firewood, willhardly begin to be appreciated until our population reaches fiftymillion Then the folly and shortsightedness of this age will meetwith a degree of censure and reproach not pleasant tocontemplate.” In the same document, Ewbank also warns that “thevast multitudes of bisons slain yearly, the ceaseless war carried onagainst them, if continued, threatens their extermination, and musthereafter cause deep regret”; especially in view of “their greatstrength and docility, when tamed, and their capacity for beingdrilled to the yoke it should never be said that the noblest ofAmerican indigenous ruminants have become extinct.” Articles onthe long-term harm produced by forest destruction appear in thereports of the commissioners of patents and of agriculture in thisdecade and during the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s

1851 Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Concord (Massachusetts)

Lyceum declaring that “in Wildness is the preservation of theWorld.” In 1863, this address is published posthumously as the

essay “Walking” in Thoreau’s Excursions.

1852 In an introductory essay in The Home Book of the Picturesque, an important

early work celebrating the American landscape through the work ofeminent writers and artists, Elias Lyman Magoon argues for theimportance of wild nature as a source of moral, spiritual andpatriotic inspiration; this reflects the growing concern with nature as

a spiritual resource, which becomes one of the definitive themes ofthe conservation movement

1853 For $10 million, the Gadsden Purchase of December 30th adds 45,535 square

miles (19 million acres) to the public domain in southern Arizonaand New Mexico (10 Stat 1031)

1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden; or, Life in the Woods The book is an

account of his retreat to the New England countryside and thegrowing disillusion with the growing industrialization andurbanization in America This volume, still in print 150 years later,has given inspiration to millions of conservationists andenvironmentalists

1855 In a letter to The Crayon, the artist Asher Durand calls for the creation of a

wilderness art

A popular anthology of American and European poetry on nature

themes, The Rhyme and Reason of Country Life, reflects the

preoccupation with idealized rural life of an increasingly urban andindustrializing nation, and epitomizes the taste for nature-relatedbooks and stories which are major aspects of American art andletters by this time These popular notions strongly influence thebeginning of the conservation movement

1857 Samuel H Hammond publishes Wild Northern Scenes; or, Sporting Adventures

with the Rifle and Rod, and important book in the nascent tradition

of the hunter-conservationist, that celebrates the beauty andbeneficence of the Adirondack wilds and advocates preservation oflimited wilderness areas as resources for recreation andrejuvenation

James Russell Lowell publishes an article in The Crayon calling for

the establishment of a society to protect American trees such asthe recently “discovered” California redwoods

In an early example of the growing public concern with fishconservation through fish culture, especially at the state level,

George Perkins Marsh publishes a Report, Made Under Authority

of the Legislature of Vermont, on the Artificial Propagation of Fish.

In this report, Marsh also explores the effects of deforestation,agriculture, and industry on fish populations

1858 Albert Bierstadt visits the Rocky Mountains region where he begins to paint

grand–but somewhat imaginative images of Western scenery thathave broad popular impact on popular culture

The commissioners charged with developing New York City’s newCentral Park as the first major rural park in an American city hold alandscape design competition; the winning entry is the

“Greensward” plan created by Frederick Law Olmsted, who hadbeen appointed the new Park’s first Superintendent the precedingyear, and British architect Calvert Vaux Olmsted is also appointedthe Park’s architect-in-chief Its realization long hampered by thepolitical infighting and insensitive public management that led toOlmsted’s final departure in 1877, the Olmsted-Vaux designnevertheless gives Central Park its enduring identity, andprofoundly influences the future course of landscape architecture inthe United States

The Georgia Legislature petitions Congress to appoint a federalcommission to inquire into the extent and duration of the southernpine belt

1859 A letter from Albert Bierstadt to The Crayon, recording impressions of Western

scenery, is widely reprinted, demonstrating the new fascination withwild scenery as an artistic subject

Publication of second edition of William Elliott’s Carolina Sports by

Land and Water (first published in 1846), an early example of the

hunter-as-conservationist, a phenomenon that became increasinglyimportant for conservation

1860s During this decade, with the Civil War raging across much of the South and East,

Congress passes several major laws dealing with land policy (seebelow) In addition, a number of huge land grants are given to therailroads, canal companies, and even military wagon roadcompanies (Oregon only) to encourage westward expansion Thelargest recipients of the land grants are the Northern Pacific,Central Pacific, Union Pacific, and the Oregon and CaliforniaRailroads Nearly 200 million acres of public land is transferred to

Kansas, Dakota Territory, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Missouri passlaws to encourage the planting of forest trees

1860 Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Middlesex (Massachusetts)

Agricultural Society, entitled “The Succession of Forest Trees,” inwhich he analyzes aspects of what later came to be understood asforest ecology and urges farmers to plant trees in natural patterns

of succession; the address is later published in (among other

places) Excursions, becoming perhaps his most influential

ecological contribution to conservationist thought

Frederick Edwin Church paints his masterpiece “Twilight in theWilderness”; throughout this era, eh and numerous other eminentacademic artists explore the power of American landscape assymbol and artistic subject in a profoundly influential body of work.

Thomas Staff King publishes The White Hills: Their Legends,

Landscape, and Poetry, that is quickly recognized as a classic

celebration of the White Mountains in the best tradition of century nature-related travel literature

mid-In an early example of the era’s great government-sponsoredscientific and ethnographic survey reports on the West, the

Congress publishes the 13-volume Reports of Explorations and

Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean

(sometimes referred to as the Pacific Railroad Surveys 1854-55).These reports, and other similar railroad survey expeditions throughthe West, include accounts of surveying and mapping that greatlyincrease knowledge and interest concerning the Westernlandscape Several accomplished artists, who accompany theexpeditions, document with colored illustrations many of the uniquegeographic features, American Indians, fishes, flora, and faunafound along the way

1860-1 Thomas Starr King publishes a series of articles on Yosemite Valley,

California, in the Boston Evening Transcript that helps publicize the

Yosemite wilderness to Easterners

1861 In both stereoscopic and mammoth-plate formats, Carleton E Watkins makes

the first important photographic record of Yosemite, a site hephotographs repeatedly in the coming decades; Watkins’s imagescirculate widely, especially in stereoscopic form, and do much topublicize Yosemite throughout the nation

1862 The Department of Agriculture is established on May 15th (12 Stat 387)

acquire–for almost free 160 acres of land by paying a filing fee andthen living on the land for five years (12 Stat 392) Nearly 550million acres of public domain land pass into private ownershipbecause of this law

Henry David Thoreau dies in Concord, Massachusetts, at the age

of 44

1864 George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as

Modified by Human Action (revised 1874 as The Earth as Modified

by Human Action), the first systematic analysis of humanity’s

destructive impact on the environment, especially in his personalobservations in the Mediterranean area This important bookbecomes (in Lewis Mumford’s words) “the fountain-head of theconservation movement.”

In precedent-setting legislation, Congress passes a bill grantingYosemite Valley to the State of California as a public park TheYosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove are granted to theState of California to hold these lands forever “for public use, resort,and recreation.” These lands are incorporated into YosemiteNational Park in 1906 after California discovers that it could notmanage the land effectively

Posthumous publication of Henry David Thoreau’s The Maine

Woods, in which Thoreau calls for the establishment of “national

preserves” of virgin forest, “not for idle sport or food, but forinspiration and our own true re-creation.”

The New York Times publishes an editorial (August 9) advocating

state acquisition of the Adirondacks for purposes of preservation

1865 Frederick Law Olmsted submits a “Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and

Big Tree Grove” to the Commissioners of California’s new Yosemitepark; this work first systematically establishes the philosophicaljustification for public preservation of great natural scenery on thebasis of its unique capacity to enhance human psychological,physical, and social health

John Burroughs publishes his first nature essay, “With the Birds,” in

the Atlantic Monthly.

1866 The word “ecology” is coined by the German biologist Ernst Haekel.

1867 Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden leads his first federally-sponsored survey in the

West; by the time it ends in 1878, the survey under his leadershiphas conducted landmark explorations throughout the region andcontributes vitally to the scientific, photographic and artisticrepresentation of the Western landscape

I A Lapham, J G Knapp, and H Crocker publish the Report on

the Disastrous Effects of the Destruction of Forest Trees, Now Growing on so Rapidly in the State of Wisconsin (Madison, WI:

Atwood & Rublee, State Printers) that is an interesting blending offact and speculation about the role of trees and forests in thewelfare of the people This forms early opinions about the coming

concerns over the loss of trees, rivers and streams, soil, rain,winds, irrigation, watershed protection, and related conservationmatters.

$7.2 million dollars, that adds 365 million acres to the publicdomain

1869 Inspired by a tour of Yosemite, and perhaps by the ideas of his friend Frederick

Law Olmsted, Samuel Bowles publishes Our New West, Records

of Travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, an

influential traveler’s account of the wilds and peoples of the West,

in which he advocates preservation of other scenic areas such asNiagra Falls and the Adirondacks

John Wesley Powell leads his first expedition through the canyons

of the Colorado, with support from the Smithsonian Institution andprivate organizations; his formal report on this and subsequent

expeditions is published in 1875 as Exploration of the Colorado

River of the West and Its Tributaries.

A group of citizens–including Frederick Law Olmsted, FredericEdwin Church, and Henry Hobson Richardson–begin to worktowards the restoration and preservation of Niagra Falls, efforts thatfinally bear fruit in the creation of the Reservation in 1885

Publication of William H.H Murray’s Adventures in the Wilderness;

or, Camp-Life in the Adirondacks, an important work publicizing the

Adirondacks and advocating the use of wilderness as a resourcefor recreation and personal and spiritual renewal; it does much toopen the flood of tourism to the region, but also stimulates thegrowth of public discussion on the need to preserve the regionpermanently

1870 Paralleling the increasing number of state-level measures for conserving supplies

of fish and game throughout the nation, Congress passes “An Act

to prevent the Extermination of Fur-Bearing Animals in Alaska,” thefirst of numerous Congressional and Presidential efforts in thecoming decades to protect the economically valuable Pacific furseals by regulating their hunting

Typifying the growing concern over wildlife destruction during the

Gilded Age, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine publishes as articles

by William H Waddle, Jr., deploring the indiscriminate destruction

of American wildlife and advocating stringent legal protection

The U.S ninth census, for the first time, includes a survey of forestresources under the direction of F.W Brewer

1871 Hayden’s United States Geological Survey of the Territories explores the

Yellowstone region with William Henry Jackson as officialphotographer and Thomas Moran as accompanying artist; widely-distributed lithographs of Moran’s paintings from this expeditionhelp publicize Yellowstone in the East, while Jackson’s 1870-1878

work with the Survey quickly becomes the most influentialphotographic representation of the Western landscape and itsnatural wonders.

Congress passes a “Joint Resolution for the Protection andPreservation of the Food Fishes of the Coast of the United States,”authorizing the President to appoint a commissioner of fish andfisheries to investigate the declining numbers of coastal and lakefood fishes, and to recommend remedial measures to Congress

Congress passes an act authorizing the expenditure of $5,000 forthe “protection of timberlands.” This is intended to be used forprotection of the naval timber (live oak) reservations This is thefirst appropriation for the protection of publically owned timber Thenext year, the amount is doubled and applies to all public lands.The Peshtigo Fire in the fall near Green Bay, Wisconsin, kills 1,500people and blackens 1.28 million acres This fire is burning at thesame time as the Great Chicago Fire Other fires in nearbyMichigan burn another 2.5 million acres Numerous homes, towns,and settlements are swept away by the flames Other major fires inthe Lake States later include Michigan’s in the Thumb region in

1881 (one million acres and costing 169 lives) and Wisconsin’sHinckley fire in 1894 (several million acres and 418 lives)

Clarence King publishes Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, a

classic work of travel literature uniting scientific geology and artisticsensibility, that helps stimulate Eastern fascination with Westernwilderness

John Burroughs publishes Wake-Robin, the first of many volumes

of his extraordinary nature essays

Henry George publishes Our Land and Land Policy, National and

State, an influential critique deploring the squandering of the public

domain and its natural resources

1872 Congress passes “An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the

Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park,” thusestablishing Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, the first in the

history of the national and of the world; the Report of the

Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park for the Year 1872,

published the following year, provides a portrait of the new park atits birth The park is established as a “public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

At the initiative of J Sterling Morton of the State Board ofAgriculture, Nebraska observes “Tree-Planting Day” on April 10,inaugurating the tradition that soon becomes known as Arbor Day.

By 1907, Arbor Day is observed annually in every State in theUnion, most importantly in the nation’s schools, where (as revealed

in works such as the 1893 booklet Arbor Day Leaves), it provides

several generations of young Americans with their most significanttraining in conservation principles and practice

unrestricted access to public domain lands to search for andpatent–transfer from public ownership to private ownership–mineralbearing lands for a minimal fee of $2.50 per acre

The USDI Commission of Fish and Fisheries begins construction ofthe first federal fish hatchery in northern California The hatchery isintended to collect salmon eggs for shipping across country toreplenish declining fisheries stock along the Atlantic seaboard.The New York State legislature creates a wild land commission toconsider state ownership of wild lands north of the Mohawk River

1872-4 In a reflection of strong popular interest in American scenery, including

wilderness scenery, the Appleton Company publishes Picturesque

America; or, The Land We Live In, ed William Cullen Bryant, a

massive two-volume work containing reports and descriptions ofscenic places along with superb engravings based on the work ofnoted artists; the work circulates widely, creating enduringinfluential popular images of some of the nation’s most famousscenic spots

1873 The Timber Culture Act of March 3rd (17 Stat 605-606) expands portions of the

Homestead Act of 1862 by allowing settlers to plant trees as asubstitute for provision of the need to live on the land Settlers aregranted a patent (private ownership) to as much as 160 acres in theGreat Plains if at least 1/4 of the land is planted with trees and keptgrowing in a healthy condition for ten years Great land fraudscame about because of this law, with almost 11million acres ofpublic domain being disposed of before the law is repealed in 1891(see the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 listing)

Under the influence of Marsh’s Man and Nature; or, Physical

Geography as Modified by Human Action, Dr Franklin Benjamin

American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Portland,Maine, entitled “On the Duty of Governments in the Preservation of

Forests”; this inspires the Association on the following day toprepare and submit a Memorial to Congress “on the importance ofpromoting the cultivation of timber and the preservation of forests,”which initiates Congressional interest in forest protection Hough is

a physician, statistician, and naturalist living in Lowville, NY

Initial publication of Forest and Stream magazine, that–especially

under the leadership of George Bird Grinnell, senior editor andpublisher from 1880 to 1911–becomes the major Americansportsmen’s magazine by the turn of the century and a forum forconservation advocacy

Lectures on forestry begin at Yale University The following yearCornell adds forestry instruction, then Michigan in 1881 By 1887,instruction or course work in forestry are offered at the NH, MA, MI,

MO, IA agricultural colleges, as well as the universities of PA, NC,Cornell, and Yale

1874 In February, Hough and co-writer George B Emerson, present the AFA memorial

to President Ulysses S Grant who then passes it to Congress as aspecial message and transmits a draft of the proposed forestrylegislation They also meet with the Secretary of the InteriorDelano and Agriculture Commissioner Frederick Watts

Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano writes in the annualdepartment report that he has concerns about “the rapid destruction

of timber,” on both private and public lands He believes that sometype of protective legislation is “absolutely necessary” to protect thepublic interest

Mid-1870s

Scribner’s Monthly publishes reports from the Western expeditions

led by Nathaniel P Langford, Ferdinand V Hayden, T.C Evert,John Wesley Powell, and others; these greatly stimulate interest inthe natural beauties of the West Typifying the increasing popularinterest in wild nature as a resource for human recreation,

Scribner’s Monthly also publishes articles advocating the virtues of

family camping in various spots throughout the country

1875 American Forestry Association is founded in Chicago on September 10th by John

A Warder and a number of concerned botanists and horticulturists;Franklin B Hough is prominent at the organization meeting; before

1900, the AFA emphasizes appreciation and protection of treesrather than forestry as an economic problem

Congress passes “An act to protect ornamental and other trees onGovernment reservations and on lands purchased by the UnitedStates, and for other purposes,” forbidding the unauthorized cutting

or injury of trees on government property

1876 John Muir publishes “God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our

Forests?,” one of his earliest pieces of published writing, in the

Sacramento Record-Union; in this article he suggests the necessity

for government protection of forests

The Appalachian Mountain Club is founded in Boston, emphasizing

a sense of stewardship toward the New England mountain wilds aspart of its organizational philosophy; it is one of the nation’s firstand most important private conservation-related organizations.After Congress allocates $2,000 in a Department of Agriculture

of approved attainments” to report to Congress on forestry matters.Franklin B Hough is appointed first federal forestry agent byCommissioner of Agriculture Frederick Watts Hough’s task is togather statistics about the state of the nation’s forests, including thesupply and demand for timber and other forest products, efforts inother countries to manage their forests, the means used in the U.S

to preserve and renew the forests, and to investigate the linksbetween forests and climate

A forest reserve bill is introduced in Congress by Representative Fort of Illinois,but the bill dies

1877 Carl Schurz begins a four-year term as Secretary of the Interior; under his

leadership, the Department of the Interior takes an active interest inconservation issues for the first time, and Schurz himself advocatesfar-sighted conservation policies, such as the creation of forestreserves and a federal forest service J.A Williamson, a militantadvocate of public forest control, appointed as the Commissioner ofthe USDI General Land Office (GLO) Responsibilities for federaltimber protection is taken from the GLO land registers andreceivers and placed with a special force of timber agents A drive

is started against timber thieves and depredations, especiallyunlawful use and fire

of desert lands in certain States and Territories," offering claimants

up to 640 acres at $1.25 an acre if they irrigate them within threeyears after filing (19 Stat 377)

J A Williamson, Commissioner of the General Land Office,

summarizes abuses inflicted upon public timber land in the Annual

Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for the Fiscal Year 1877 The timber depredations report, on pages 16-26,

is intended to arouse Congress to action, but little work isforthcoming

1878 The Free Timber Act of June 3rd (20 Stat 88-89) give miners the right to cut

timber on public domain mineral claims for both mining anddomestic purposes in the states of CO, NV, NM, AZ, UT, WY,Dakota Territory, ID, and MT The Timber and Stone Act of June

3rd (20 Stat 89-91) authorizes the sale of non-tillable, publictimberland for personal use The minimum price is to be $2.50 peracre for a maximum of 160 acres per person in the states of WA,

OR, CA, and NV More land frauds result

John Wesley Powell, the geologist in charge of the U.S.Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain

Region, publishes Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the

United States, a pioneering work recognizing the West's unique

environmental character, advocating irrigation and conservationefforts in it, and calling for the distribution of Western lands tosettlers on a democratic and environmentally realistic basis

Franklin B Hough issues the landmark 650-page Report upon

Forestry to Congress, the first fruit of the federal government's

forestry activities and a wide-ranging survey of information andissues pertinent to the management of the nation's forests, as well

as the international situation in regards to forestry matters 25,000copies are ordered printed by Congress

A bill is introduced in Congress to preserve public domain timberland from sale or disposal, the commercially valuable timber lands

to held by the government to prevent destruction by fire and waste,ensure the restoration and reproduction of the forests, and sale oftrees for timber An office of forester would be set up in the InteriorDepartment, with employment of foresters to manage the publicforests The bill fails to pass, but the ideas are kept alive foranother 20 years

The first state game commissions are established in California andNew Hampshire

1879 The annual Sundry Civil Appropriations Act on March 3rd (20 Stat 377) officially

establishes the U.S Geological Survey as a bureau of the InteriorDepartment, with responsibility for "the classification of the public

lands." The same appropriations act authorizes the appointment of

a Public Lands Commission (20 Stat 394-95) to review federalpublic land policy; members include John Wesley Powell, ClarenceDutton, and Clarence King The Commission spends severalmonths traveling in the West, surveying land use TheCommission’s report to Congress expressing differing views amongthe Commissioners on how to rationalize land policy, including theneed for a law to correct abuses of existing homestead and timberuse laws, advising that public lands covered with timber bewithdrawn from settlement, and setting aside portions of theseforest lands as forest reserves However, all the recommendationsare ignored by Congress

1880s The American Forestry Association and the American Association for the

Advancement of Science advocate designation of westerntimberlands as permanent public reservations

1880 At the direction of the New York State Legislature, a commission led by State

Survey Director James T Gardner and Frederick Law Olmsted

prepares a Special Report on the Preservation of the Scenery of

Niagara Falls, advocating State purchase, restoration and

preservation through public ownership of the scenic landssurrounding Niagara Falls Accompanied by a Memorial to thegovernor signed by more than a hundred prominent citizens, this

Report defines the direction of the public campaign to save the

beauties of Niagara

The U.S tenth census, for the second time, includes a survey offorest resources under the direction of Charles S Sargent

1881 The Division of Forestry is provisionally established in the Department of

Agriculture, with Franklin B Hough as its first chief; its role islargely confined to dispensing information and technical forestryadvice to private land owners The remaining volumes of the

Report upon Forestry are issued until 1884 under Hough and his

successor, Nathaniel H Egleston

1882 In this and the preceding year, the campaign to save Niagara through the

creation of a state-owned reserve is energized by the publication inNew York and Boston newspapers of a series of letters callingattention to the dangers threatening Niagara's scenery; the 1882letters, by Jonathan Baxter Harrison, also circulate in the form of apamphlet entitled "The Condition of Niagara Falls, and theMeasures Needed to Preserve Them."

Clarence Edward Dutton publishes "The Physical Geology of the

Grand Canon District" in the Second Annual Report of the United

States Geological Survey, a precise and beautifully discerning

account of a remarkable natural region that demonstrates theexceptional scientific and even literary merit of many of thegovernment-sponsored scientific survey reports published in thisera

The First American Forestry Congress meets in Cincinnati in Apriland Montreal in August Dr Bernhard E Fernow is the secretary ofthe Forestry Congress

The Wheelman, a magazine for enthusiasts of the new bicycling

craze, begins publication; it subsequently publishes a number ofarticles urging the enjoyment of bicycle touring to wild and scenicspots, reflecting the growing interest in nature-based recreation inAmerica

George Perkins Marsh dies in Italy, where he has been serving asU.S Minister since 1861; his grave is in the Protestant Cemetery inRome At the time of his death, he is working on additional

revisions to the latest edition of Man and Nature (that he had retitled The Earth as Modified by Human Action).

1883 The American Ornithologists' Union, a professional society dedicated to bird

protection, is founded in New York City; like the first AudubonSociety (founded in 1886 by George Bird Grinnell, though it lastsonly two years), this organization reflects the growing concern withbirds and bird protection in American culture

Thomas Donaldson documents the many types of fraudulent land

entries on public domain land in his book The Public Domain,

published by the Government Printing Office

1884 Undertaking his research under the influence of Marsh's Man and Nature,

Charles Sprague Sargent, the visionary director of Harvard

University's Arnold Arboretum, publishes a Report on the Forests of

North America (Exclusive of Mexico) as part of the Tenth Census;

in addition to important scientific information, this influential workwarns of the need to reform destructive timber managementpolicies

1885 The Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy (later called the Biological Survey,

then the USDI Fish & Wildlife Service in 1940) is established in theDepartment of Agriculture, where it remains for the next 55 years

C Hart Merriam heads the new division

Six bills are introduced in Congress for the creation of public forestreserves None pass.

New York State establishes the Adirondack Forest Preserve,stipulating that it "shall be kept forever as wild forest lands": Amilestone in conservation legislation The legislature alsoestablishes the Catskill Forest Preserve Also, a comprehensivefire control law is passed

Formal opening (July 15) of New York State Reservation atNiagara, including a speech by James C Carter, later published inpamphlet form, that links the spiritual importance of scenery to aphilosophy of public preservation; the reservation is aprecedent-setting attempt to preserve scenic beauty whileaccommodating natural-resource use, and the capstone of a citizencampaign of conservation advocacy

State boards of forestry are established in CA, CO, and OH

1886 In an appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture, the Division of Forestry

is granted permanent status within the Department (24 Stat 100,103); Bernhard E Fernow is named as the Division of Forestrychief

By executive order of President Grover Cleveland, ten townshipsaround Crater Lake, Oregon, are withdrawn from public settlementfor scenery and forest purposes The matter is pushed for byWilliam Gladstone Steel from Portland National park status wouldhave to wait until 1902

1887 In December, Theodore Roosevelt invites a number of influential sportsman

friends to dinner in Manhattan to discuss the creation of a huntingand conservation organization He and George Bird Grinnell, editor

of the highly regarded Forest and Stream Weekly, devise the idea.

The following month (January 1888) the Boone and Crockett Club

is founded, with Roosevelt elected as the club’s first president.This organization plays a major role in associating big-gamehunters with the conservation movement; the Club eventuallypublishes several volumes of writings on hunting and conservation,

including American Big Game In Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone

and Crockett Club, in 1904.

Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux prepare a detailed planfor the restoration of the landscape immediately surrounding

Niagara Falls; published as a Supplemental Report of the

Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara, the plan

shows how the challenges and paradoxes posed by scenicpreservation and the accommodation of visitors in acarefully-conserved natural setting intersected with those of theemerging profession of landscape architecture, of which Olmsted isthe nation's greatest practitioner

Charles Sprague Sargent founds and directs Garden and Forest, a

literate, thoughtful, and informative weekly that does much to fosterawareness of and interest in American forests, trees, horticulture,landscape design, and scenic preservation during the ten years ofits publication His editorials from 1888 to 1897 help stimulatepublic opinion in favor of federal forest and park conservation

The Division of Forestry releases a “Report on the Relation ofRailroads for Forest Supplies and Forestry.” The report warnsabout the huge need by the railroads for wooden ties and wood tofire the steam engines It would be years before the practice ofsoaking railroad ties with creosote would dramatically reduce theneed for replacement wood ties cut from the private forests

In an early act of wildlife conservation, Congress passes legislationgranting the Seal Rocks off Point Lobos near San Francisco in trustfor the people of the United States, on condition that the city "shallkeep said rocks free from encroachment by man, and shallpreserve from molestation the seals and other animals nowaccustomed to resort there."

1888 The USDI Geological Survey establishes an Irrigation Division with authority

given to the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw reservoir sites andother public lands that in the future would be necessary forirrigation purposes (25 Stat 526-27) Congress requests that theSecretary of the Interior, through the Director of the GeologicalSurvey, make an examination of the arid regions of the U.S forpossible agricultural development through irrigation (25 Stat 618-19)

The American Forestry Association presents a bill to Congress,written by Bernhard E Fernow who is Chief of the Division ofForestry The unsuccessful bill, that provides for the withdrawalfrom homesteading or sale all public timber lands, is resubmitted forthe next three years, until it becomes the basis for the ForestReserve Act of 1891

A law is passed by Congress to forbid timber trespass on Indianreservations.

1889 William Temple Hornaday prepares a report to the Secretary of the Smithsonian

entitled The Extermination of the American Bison that originally

was printed in the Smithsonian's annual report for 1887–severelycriticizing the near-extermination of bison in the West, andadvocating protection of what remained of the herds

Congress passes "An act to provide for the protection of the salmonfisheries of Alaska," the first of several such federal statutoryattempts to protect this economically valuable resource

dead timber on Indian Reservations (25 Stat 673)

The American Forestry Congress presents a report of timbertrespass and timber thievery on the public lands to PresidentBenjamin Harrison The report notes that between 1881-87 over

$36 million worth of timber is unlawfully taken, with only about

$475,000 worth recovered by the government

Congress authorizes President Harrison to reserve the CaseGrande Ruin in Arizona He waited three years to establish federalprotection of an archaeological site the first ever

The Department of Agriculture receives Cabinet status on February

9th (25 Stat 835)

Following very heavy rains, the South Fork Dam near Johnstown,

PA, overflows than bursts The disastrous Johnstown Flood onMay 31, 1889, kills 2,209 people Since 1964, the site is now anational monument

Editorials by Robert Underwood Johnson in Century magazine in

the 1889-1891 period help turn public opinion in favor of federalforest conservation

1890s In a time of growing awareness of the potential benefits of scientific

forestry, the forestry movement shifts its emphasis from savingtrees to promoting scientific forest management

Photographer A.P Hill uses his photographs of the Californiaredwoods to publicize them as part of campaign to prevent theirdestruction.

1890 Congress authorizes (26 Stat 146) the Secretary of the Interior to employ

Indians to cut of 20 million board feet of green timber on theMenominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin This is the first lawregulating the cutting of timber on government-managed lands

In less than a week, Congress passes legislation establishingSequoia National Park, California (in a bill enacted September 25),and Yosemite and General Grant National Parks, California (in a billenacted October 1) The total area is 838,770 acres, that is latergreatly enlarged

Boston-based landscape architect Charles Eliot makes theinnovative proposal that a private association be created for thepurpose of protecting and preserving regional scenic treasuresthrough permanent trusteeship: "As Boston's lovers of art united tofound the Art Museum, so her lovers of nature should now rally topreserve for themselves and all the people as many as possible ofthe scenes of natural beauty by great good fortune, still exist neartheir doors."

At the behest of editor Robert Underwood Johnson, and as part oftheir campaign to make Yosemite a national park, John Muirpublishes two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in

Century magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features

of the Proposed Yosemite National Park."

William Gladstone Steel publishes a book The Mountains of

Oregon, that concerns the Cascade Range of mountains and

Crater Lake A popular book, it helps raise concerns over theeventual fate of the high mountain areas in the state

1891 The General Revision Act of 1891 (otherwise known as the Payson Act) and the

laws, and for other purposes" becomes law This act is a rider–section 24–of a broader bill to repeal the Timber Culture Act of

1873, the Preemption Act of 1841, and other homestead acts.Section 24 empowers the President to create "forest reserves"(later known as national forests) by withdrawing forest covered landfrom the public domain; this creates the legislative foundation forwhat became the National Forest System (26 Stat 1095, 1103)

President Benjamin Harrison issues Presidential Proclamation 17

on March 30th setting aside the Yellowstone Park Timber LandReserve a 1,239,040-acre tract of land on the southern edge ofYellowstone National Park in Wyoming as the nation's first forestreservation, the first unit in what eventually becomes the NationalForest System (26 Stat 1565) Before President Harrison’s term ofoffice expires, he establishes some 13 million acres of forestreserves from public domain, forest land in the West

The effort to establish a privately-funded tax-exempt association toprotect Massachusetts's natural and historical treasures,spearheaded by Charles Eliot, culminates in the incorporation ofthe Trustees of Public Reservations by act of the Massachusettslegislature; this organization is the nation's first land trust, and theimmediate inspiration for Great Britain's National Trust

First International Irrigation Congress meets in Salt Lake City,promoting the cause of large-scale irrigation in the West

1891-1902

Charles Sprague Sargent publishes his fourteen-volume The Silva

of North America; A Description of the Trees Which Grow Naturally

in North America Exclusive of Mexico, the seminal work of

American dendrology

1892 In San Francisco, John Muir and a group of associates meet on June 4th to

establish the Sierra Club, that is modeled on the AppalachianMountain Club and explicitly dedicated to promote enjoyment andprotection of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Gifford Pinchot is hired as the first American professional forester

on the Biltmore Estate of George W Vanderbilt near Asheville, NC.This forest area is later donated to the Forest Service to be part ofthe national forest system, where it became part of the presentPisgah National Forest

New York State creates the Adirondack Park, including bothportions of the Adirondack Forest Preserve and private holdings,explicitly recognizing the region's value as wilderness

President Benjamin Harrison issues a Proclamation setting aside atract of land in Alaska as a forest and fish culture reservation(known as the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve), thus

creating what is in effect, if not in name, the first national wildliferefuge.

Lafayette Houghton Bunnell publishes the third and final edition of

his memoir Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851,

Which Led to That Event, first published in 1880; it offers readers a

striking account of the powerful impact of Yosemite's grandeur onone of its earliest white visitors, while also pointing to the intimateand complicated connection between the roots of preservationistsentiment and the course of violent conquest

Oregon Alpine Club is established in March by William GladstoneSteel of Portland The purpose of the climbing/outdoor club is “theestablishment of a public museum and the laying aside for nationalparks, as well as for certain forms of [forest] reservations andathletic amusement.” One of the club’s primary goals is thecreation of Crater Lake National Park in the Oregon Cascades

1893 Historian Frederick Jackson Turner publishes an essay entitled "The Significance

of the Frontier in American History," claiming that Americancharacter and democracy have been decisively and positivelyshaped by the continuous experience of the frontier, that hasnow according to the 1890 census finally disappeared beneaththe last waves of settlement

1894 The National Park Protective Act May 7th (28 Stat 73) is "to protect the birds and

animals in Yellowstone National Park." The act establishes theprinciple that national parks exist in part to protect wildlife and are

National Park Concessionaires Act becomes law (28 Stat 222) thatgrants specific leases within Yellowstone National Park

Revision of the New York State Constitution strengthens protection

of the Adirondack Forest and Catskill Forest Preserve by declaringthat these lands be kept “forever wild” and "shall not be leased, sold

or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, norshall the timber thereon be sold, removed, or destroyed”; thisprovision marks a triumph of the preservationist aspect ofconservationism

Bird Day first observed, on May 4, on the model of Arbor Day and

at the initiative of Charles Almanzo Babcock, Superintendent ofSchools in Oil City, Pennsylvania By 1910, Bird Day is observedwidely, often in conjunction with Arbor Day; together, Bird Day andArbor Day provide an important opportunity for formal conservationtraining and reflection in the nation's schools

John Muir publishes his first book, The Mountains of California; it

eventually sells some ten thousand copies

1895 The Mazamas are formed by William Gladstone Steel of Portland, Oregon, after

his first attempt of having an activist forestry and national parkorganization–the Oregon Alpine Club–proves to be ineffectual andtimid in the congressional fights The purpose of the new climbing/outdoor club is the survival of the Cascade Range Forest Reserve,that is opposed by the entire Oregon delegation to Congress, aswell as creation of a Crater Lake National Park

1896 In an appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture, Congress establishes

the Division of Biological Survey within the Department; it succeedsthe Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy, and isrenamed the Bureau of Biological Survey in 1905 Thirty yearslater, this agency will become the core of the new USDI Fish &Wildlife Service

The Massachusetts Audubon Society is founded at the instigation

of Boston society matron Harriet Lawrence Hemenway, launchingthe permanent Audubon movement in the United States andproviding a grass-roots model outlet for activity by the increasingnumbers of Americans concerned with birds and bird protection; bythe end of the following year, there are Audubon Societies in tenstates and the District of Columbia

The American Academy of Sciences establishes a committee onthe forest reserves, chaired by Charles Sprague Sargent withGifford Pinchot as its youngest member The committee tours theexisting and potentially new forest reserves in the West in thesummer of 1896 They propose to greatly increase the area of theforest reserves by creating or enlarging 13 reserves covering over

21 million acres (that the President did on February 22, 1897, that

in turn led to the Organic Act of 1897) and to establish two nationalparks–Mt Rainier (created from the Mt Rainier Forest Reserve in1899) and Grand Canyon (created from the Grand Canyon NationalMonument in 1919)

1897 As part of an appropriations bill, Congress after heated discussion passes what

is known as the Forest Management Act, or Organic Act, on June

makes explicit the purposes of Forest Reserves (later NationalForests) to protect the forest, provide water, and allow timberharvest, as well as resource uses for recreation, lumbering, mining,

and grazing that provides the blueprint for their management untilthe 1960s; this act also places federal forest administration underthe jurisdiction of the USDI General Land Office There is arequirement that forest survey and mapping work be completed bythe USDI Geological Survey, that establishes a Division ofGeography and Forestry Another provision of the act allows “inlieu” trading of public land inside the forest reserve boundaries withother public lands outside the boundaries Great land fraudsensue Pinchot is hired by the GLO as a “confidential forestryagent” to investigate the management of the forest reserves GLOforest reserve superintendents are hired to oversee themanagement of the reserves on one or more states in the West.

This year and the next, John Muir publishes two articles in the

Atlantic Monthly, "The American Forests" (1897) and "The Wild

Parks and Forest Reservations of the West" (1898), that reveal theshift in his thought from compromise to absolute opposition on thequestion of "use" of protected resources; these articles are later

republished in his book Our National Parks in 1901

A classic work of nature-writing for young people, Citizen Bird, the

joint creation of an ornithologist (Elliott Coues), a nature-writer(Mabel Osgood Wright), and a wildlife artist (Louis AgassizFuertes), suggests the conjunction of science, aesthetics, andmoralistic pedagogical enthusiasm that inspired both the surge ofpopular ornithology in this era and much of the grass-roots supportfor preservationist conservation measures

1898 Gifford Pinchot is appointed chief of the USDA Division of Forestry on July 1st

and he requests that his title be renamed as “The Forester” which it

is (this new title will remain until 1935 when the title “Chief” isreestablished); begins crusade to convert the public and forestindustry to support for scientific forest management The USDI-GLO hires the first forest rangers to work on the forest reservesduring the summer fire season (30 Stat 597, 618) The forestranger jobs are to stop fires, build trails, look for timber thieves andgrazing trespass, and well as try to find out more about the hugeforest reserves and their resources

Ernest Seton Thompson (later better known as Ernest Thompson

Seton) publishes his best-selling Wild Animals I Have Known, the

first entry in a new genre of anthropomorphic wild-animal stories bySeton and others; scientific accuracy in these works is alwayssuspect, but their vast popularity, and capacity to engenderfascination with and sentimental concern for American wildlife, is

never in doubt, and Seton himself is genuinely concerned with themoral obligations of humans toward wildlife.

Exemplifying the links between sport and the conservationmovement, ardent conservationist George Oliver Shields, founder,

editor and publisher of Recreation magazine and (from 1905) of

Shields' Magazine, founds the League of American Sportsmen to

advance the cause of conservation through members of thesporting public; Shields is the League's only president and guidingforce, and it declines along with his personal fortunes after 1908 The first four-year curriculum in forestry in the U.S starts at CornellUniversity in New York In this same year, the Biltmore ForestSchool is also established Other schools of forestry soon follow

1899 Frank M Chapman founds Bird-Lore magazine as the organ of the nation's

Audubon Societies; it becomes the leading popular journal ofornithology and nature study in this era, and exerts incalculableinfluence on the growth of conservation knowledge and popular

support; today it continues under its later name, Audubon.

reserves This is the first such law to recognize the value of forestsfor recreational use

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, on 292,892 acres, is

993)

The Harriman Alaska Expedition explores coastal Alaska by boatthroughout the summer The Expedition is undertaken by a group ofdistinguished citizens, many of whom are actively involved inconservationism, including numerous scientists under the direction

of C Hart Merriam (Chief, U.S Biological Survey), John Muir, JohnBurroughs, photographer Edward Curtis, forester Bernhard Fernow,George Bird Grinnell, and artists Frederick Dellenbaugh and LouisAgassiz Fuertes, funded and accompanied by railroad magnateEdward H Harriman and members of his family The Expeditionproduces a remarkable private Album of "Chronicles andSouvenirs" that captures much of the spirit and outlook thatenlivens the conservation movement in this era The results of theExpedition's scientific and ethnological investigations fill fifteenvolumes published between 1901 and 1914

1900 Congress passes the first comprehensive federal legislation on May 25th

designed to protect wildlife: The Lacey Act, so called in recognition

of its chief sponsor Rep John F Lacey, outlaws the importation ofcertain bird species, mongoose, and the fruit bat, as well asinterstate shipment of any wild animals or birds killed in violation ofstate laws (31 Stat 187).

Congress appropriates $5,000 for the investigation of forestconditions in the Appalachians with the notion that some land could

be purchased for forest reserves

At the urging of the California Club, a San Francisco women'sorganization, Congress passes a Joint Resolution authorizing theSecretary of the Interior to purchase two groves of the giant

Sequoia (Sequoia gigantea) in California; though the effort is not

successful, it highlights the increasing private and publiccommitment to protection of the nation's natural wonders, and therole of women's groups in the conservation movement

William E Smythe publishes The Conquest of Arid America, an

ardently optimistic vision of the future for an irrigated West, linkingdemocratic opportunity to the large-scale technological control ofnatural resources; at a time when irrigation is understood to be anintegral aspect of conservation, this work exemplifies the mentalitythat creates popular support for the Newlands Reclamation Act in1902

in the office of Gifford Pinchot in the old Department of Agriculturebuilding in Washington, DC; Pinchot, Henry Graves, Overton Price,E.T Allen, William Hall, Ralph Hosmer, and Thomas Sherrard arethe founding members; the meetings would later be held inPinchot’s home

1901 The Right of Way Act is signed into law that permits the use of rights of way

through forest reserves and national parks for electrical power,telephone and telegraph communication, and irrigation and watersupply (31 Stat 790)

The USDA Division of Forestry becomes the Bureau of Forestry on

its head The first timber sale on the forest reserves is from theBlack Hills Forest Reserve in South Dakota In the annual report ofthe Interior Secretary Hitchcock, he recommends that the forestreserves be placed in the USDA Bureau of Forestry This wouldnot happen until 1905

Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the United States uponthe death of President McKinley on September 14, andconservation becomes a cornerstone of his domestic policy.

President Theodore Roosevelt's First Annual Message outlines hisgoals of forest conservation and preservation (including the use offorest reserves as wildlife preserves), and the need forgovernment-sponsored irrigation projects in the arid West

John Muir publishes Our National Parks, a beautifully-written

portrait of some of the nation's great scenic wildernesses by theirgreatest defender; the book goes through a dozen printings andestablishes Muir's reputation in the public mind

The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society is founded

in New York, developing out of the state-level Trustees of Scenicand Historic Places and Objects which had been founded byAndrew H Green, president of the Commissioners of the StateReservation at Niagara, in 1895, and modeled after Britain'sNational Trust; the new organization advocates protection of bothscenic places and historic sites throughout the nation,demonstrating like the American Antiquities Act of 1906 therelationship between the movements for natural and culturalpreservation in turn-of-the-century America

The periodical Country Life in America begins publication under the

editorship of Liberty Hyde Bailey; its pragmatic celebration of thesuburban pastoral soon brings it widespread popularity

1902 Congress passes "An Act Appropriating the receipts from the sale and disposal

of public lands in certain States and Territories to the construction

of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands," known as theNewlands Reclamation Act of June 17th (32 Stat 388) in honor ofits chief sponsor, Sen Francis G Newlands, that designatesproceeds from the sale of public lands in sixteen Western states as

a fund for the development of irrigation projects; settlers are torepay the costs of these projects, thus creating a permanentrevolving fund This Act commits the federal government to supportand, ultimately, control of the large-scale irrigation which transformsthe landscape, economy, and social and political structure of much

of the West

Oregon by removing 156,850 acres from the Cascade ForestReserve (PL 121)

In one of a series of acts designed to regulate harvesting ofAlaskan wildlife, Congress passes "An Act For the protection ofgame in Alaska, and for other purposes," known as the AlaskaGame Act, protecting certain game animals in Alaska; theseprovisions are strengthened by an act amending the Alaska GameAct in 1908.

Bernhard E Fernow publishes The Economics of Forestry: A

Reference Book for Students of Political Economy and Professional and Lay Students of Forestry, a comprehensive overview of forestry

principles and their contemporary and historical relationship topublic policy, written at a time when forestry practices are in thevanguard of conservationism

Reflecting the popular fascination with nature-based recreation andconcern with wild nature as a resource for character development,

Ernest Thompson Seton publishes a series of articles in the Ladies'

Home Journal calling for the creation of a boys' organization to be

named the Woodcraft Indians; this directly inspires Sir RobertBaden-Powell's founding of the Boy Scouts in Britain in 1908 andhelps launch the scouting movement in the United States

John Wesley Powell dies in Maine, shortly after Congress passesthe Newlands Reclamation Act

1903 On March 10, President Roosevelt establishes a federally-protected wildlife

refuge by executive order setting aside Pelican Island on IndianRiver, Florida, as a preserve and breeding ground for the brownpelican and other birds; it is the first of fifty-three wildlife sanctuariesRoosevelt creates while President, and establishes the precedent

on which the system of national wildlife refuges will be based.Roosevelt's keen interest in birds and their conservation isdocumented by contemporary film footage of his visits to birdsanctuaries

Concern about the administration of public lands in the West,particularly the question of grazing leases for cattlemen, promptsthe Roosevelt administration to appoint a Public Lands Commission

to study and report on public lands issues; the Commission'smembers are W.A Richards, F.H Newell, and Gifford Pinchot.Congress passes a bill establishing Wind Cave National Park,South Dakota

Mary Austin’s book The Land of Little Rain is a classic celebration

of the desert country of California

John Burroughs publishes an influential essay in the Atlantic

Monthly, "Real and Sham Natural History," attacking sentimental

popular nature-writers such as Ernest Thompson Seton and William

J Long as "nature fakers”; Roosevelt later joins the controversy insupport of Burroughs

The Department of Commerce and Labor is established thatincorporates the Commission of Fish and Fisheries, thereafterknown as the Bureau of Fisheries The bureau would be combinedwith the USDA Biological Survey and others to create the USDIFish & Wildlife Service in the late 1930s

1904 The American Civic Association is founded June 10 by merging the American

Park and Outdoor Art Association with the American League forCivic Improvement; under the leadership of J Horace McFarland, acivic activist and newspaperman from Harrisburg, Pa., its activitiesinclude leading campaigns for the creation and protection ofnational, state, and municipal parks

Congress passes a bill that leads to the establishment of Sullys HillNational Park, North Dakota

The Catskill Forest Preserve, New York, is integrated into theCatskill State Park

1905 Acting under the influence of Gifford Pinchot, the American Forestry Association

sponsors the Second American Forest Congress in Washington,DC; attended by leaders of lumbering, mining, grazing, andirrigation industries and by leaders in education and government,the Congress underscores the great need for natural resourcemanagement as important to the national economic well-being

The Forest Congress also passes a resolution that recommends toCongress that all forest work needs to be unified in the USDA.Gifford Pinchot then succeeds in having the oversight of nationalforest reserves transferred from the General Land Office to theBureau of Forestry, that is accomplished by "An Act Providing forthe transfer of forest reserves from the Department of Interior to theDepartment of Agriculture,” known as the Transfer Act of February

1, 1905 (33 Stat 628) This change also symbolizes a shift ofemphasis from preservation to scientific forestry, and Pinchot'sdominance in public conservation policy The Bureau of Forestry is

872-873) The USDA Division of Biological Survey becomes the

Another March 3rd act repeals the forest lieu provision of theOrganic Act of 1897, that is the source of many land frauds (33Stat 1264).

The Public Lands Commission, appointed by President Theodore

Roosevelt, publishes its Report, recommending adjustments in the

law and administrative procedure governing federally-held landsbased on a belief in the value of rationally-managed public control

of natural resources

Congress passes a "Joint Resolution Accepting the recession bythe State of California of the Yosemite Valley Grant and theMariposa Big Tree Grove in the Yosemite National Park,"appropriating $20,000 for the re-acquisition of these lands by thefederal government; this transaction is confirmed by another byJoint Resolution enacted in 1906, that reconfigures the boundaries

of Yosemite National Park to include the Yosemite Valley

The President is authorized to set aside areas in the Wichita ForestReserve as a game refuge That portion of the reserve istransferred to the Fish & Wildlife Service in 1936

J Horace McFarland, President of the American Civic Association,

publishes a series of articles in Ladies' Home Journal advocating

preservation of Niagara Falls from the threat posed by water powerdemands, that generates a huge favorable response from readersand inaugurates a campaign that provokes the Congressionalaction on Niagara of the following year

The National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection ofWild Birds and Animals is founded in New York, officially uniting thenumerous state groups that have sprung up since 1896, andestablishing a strong national voice for conservation (In 1940, theorganization's name is changed to the National Audubon Society.)

Nathaniel Southgate Shaler publishes by Man and the Earth, a

prophetic scientific and philosophical exploration of mankind'srelationship with the earth that anticipates the writings of suchfigures as by Liberty Hyde Bailey and, much later, Aldo Leopold;Shaler predicts that in the future humanity's relations with the earthwill be characterized by a new consciousness of man's ethicalresponsibility to the natural world, and he directs attention toproblems of ecology, biodiversity loss, and the need for worldwideefforts toward scenic and wildlife preservation

1906 The Forest Service begins charging for grazing cattle and sheep on the Forest

Reserves beginning January 1st

The American Antiquities Act of June 8th forbids persons withoutproper authority to appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy andhistoric or prehistoric ruin or monument of antiquity on land owned

or controlled by the government (34 Stat 225) It also authorizesthe President to establish national monuments for the preservation

of features of historic, prehistoric, and scientific interest President

establishing Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming, as the

more Proclamations, establishing Petrified Forest and MontezumaNational Monuments, both in Arizona and the El Morro (InscriptionRock) National Monument in New Mexico Many other newnational monuments are administered by the Forest Service, others

by the Department of the Interior and the Department of War Themonuments administered by the Forest Service and the WarDepartment are transferred to Interior Department management in

1933

The Forest Homestead Act of June 11, 1906, allows settlers tohomestead within forest reserves if the land is more valuable forfarming that trees (34 Stat 233) Great land frauds develop

ten percent of the revenues to the states or territories where theforest reserves (national forests) are found The money isearmarked for public roads and schools (34 Stat 669, 684)

Congress passes a bill establishing Mesa Verde National Park,Colorado, and by a Resolution designating Sulphur SpringsReservation, Oklahoma, as Platt National Park

by the State of California of the lands in Yosemite–that weregranted to the state in 1864 as a state park are incorporated intoYosemite National Park

Congress passes "An Act to Extend the Irrigation Act to the State ofTexas," extending the provisions of the Newlands Act to Texas

Responding to the campaign of public concern about the depletion

of Niagara Falls orchestrated by J Horace McFarland andsupported by the Sierra Club and the Appalachian Mountain Club,

Congress passes on June 29th a Joint Resolution (34 Stat 626),called the Burton Act, instructing the American representatives to

an international commission on Niagara to work with their Canadiancounterparts to preserve the Falls; and by "An Act For the controland regulation of the waters of Niagara River, for the preservation

of Niagara Falls, and for other purposes," restricting the diversion ofwater from the sources of the Falls and requesting the President toundertake the necessary treaty negotiations to guarantee the Falls'protection by both the United States and Canada; though it permitsgreater water diversion than preservationists like McFarland hadhoped, a final treaty is signed in 1909 that limits the total amount ofwater diverted from the Falls by both nations to 56,000 cubic feetper second, a limitation that remains in effect until 1950

This year and the following, Gifford Pinchot prepares several billsfor Congress that would place the national parks under the ForestService management so that they may be open for resourcedevelopment; these measures are successfully opposed by Rep.John F Lacey, Chairman of the House Public Lands Committeeand Congressional spokesman for the preservationist approach toconservation; Pinchot's effort ultimately backfires by sparking thepreservationists' campaign to establish a permanent separatebureau to administer the national parks

1907 John Muir publishes "The Tuolumne Yosemite in Danger" in Outlook, the opening

salvo in his campaign to save Hetch Hetchy Valley in the northernpart of Yosemite National Park from damming the Tuolumne River

as a reservoir to provide drinking water for San Francisco; thecampaign becomes a national focus for conservation efforts andthought during the next several years, and signals the ideologicalsplit of the conservation movement between advocates ofpreservationist-conservationism (those who seek to retain naturalareas in their "natural" state) and advocates of utilitarian-conservationism (those who seek to manage the sustainableharvesting of natural resources for human benefit)

Through provisions embedded in the Forest Service sub-section of

an Agriculture appropriations act, Congress renames forestreserves as "national forests," and forbids their further creation orenlargement in six Western states (Oregon, Washington, Idaho,Montana, Colorado, or Wyoming), except by act of Congress (34Stat 1256, 1269); when the bill passes Congress on February 25,Pinchot and his staff work feverishly to identify sixteen million acres

of forest in these six states that are designated as national forests

by President Roosevelt before he signs the bill into law on March 4.Since then they have often referred to as the “midnight reserves.”California is not included in the ban, but is added in 1912 (37 Stat.497).

Heralding the growth of organized opposition to conservationpolicy, the Colorado legislature and Governor Henry Buchtelsponsor the Denver Public Lands Convention; it is attended byrepresentatives of Western ranching and mining interests who callfor cession of public lands to the states and restriction of national

forests; the Convention's Proceedings are published later in the

same year

President Roosevelt issues two Proclamations: One thatestablishes Cinder Cone National Monument and another thatestablishes Lassen Peak National Monument, both in California

Commission, with Representative Burton of Ohio as chair, to studythe nation's declining river navigation and recommend measures to

revive it; the Commission's Report, submitted by the President to

Congress the following year, supports a carefully plannedmulti-purpose approach to the use and development of the nation'srivers, to be coordinated by a single executive agency

In his Seventh Annual Message, President Roosevelt makes thecase for utilitarian conservationism especially forcefully, assertingthat "the conservation of our natural resources and their proper useconstitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost everyother problem of our National life," and that his administration hasbeen trying "to substitute a planned and orderly development of ourresources in place of a haphazard striving for immediate profit."

At the request of the Massachusetts legislature, ornithologistEdward Howe Forbush prepares model bird-protection laws He

publishes Useful Birds and Their Protection, that is the first major

work by an American to analyze the economic importance of birdsand the strategies necessary for their protection

1908 The first Governors' Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources is

called by President Roosevelt and organized by Gifford Pinchot andhis associate "WJ" (as he preferred to style himself) McGee, whomPinchot calls "the scientific brains of the new [conservation]movement." The conference is largely financed by Pinchot Theconference is held May 13-15 at the White House, propellingconservation issues into the forefront of public consciousness and

stimulating a large number of private and state-level conservation

initiatives The Conference's Proceedings are published in 1909 A

second such Conference is held at the end of the year to receivethe recommendations of the National Conservation Commission.The first forest reserve created by Congress, rather thanPresidential proclamation, is established on May 23rd as theMinnesota Forest Reserve (PL 137 - 35 Stat 268)

states for schools and roads are increased to 25 percent of thenational forest receipts (35 Stat 251, 260)

The Forest Service reorganizes the field offices to include DistrictOffice (now Regional Office) to create a buffer between the nationaloffice and the national forest offices Six new offices are created(Portland, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Denver, Ogden, andMissoula) Several others are later established in Philadelphia,Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Juneau

The first Forest Service forest experiment station (the CoconinoForest Experiment Station) is established at Fort Valley on theCoconino Plateau in Arizona The name is changed to the FortValley Forest Experiment Station in 1911 then to the SouthwesternForest Experiment Station in 1924) More experiment stationsfollow in other locations in the West

The National Conservation Commission, appointed in June byPresident Roosevelt and composed of representatives of Congressand relevant executive agencies with Gifford Pinchot as chairman,compiles an inventory of U.S natural resources and presentsPinchot's concepts of resource management as a comprehensive

policy recommendation in a three-volume Report submitted to

underscore the importance of private conservation activity,including that of women's groups, at this time, and highlight theenergetic public response to the 1908 Governors' Conference Until

1915, these Congresses serve as annual forums for discussion anddebate among public and private conservation leaders, though theyare eventually undermined by internal squabbling

An article by Robert Underwood Johnson in Century magazine, "A

High Price to Pay for Water," helps bring the Hetch Hetchycontroversy to national attention

Congress begins several years of hearings and debate on the

Hetch Hetchy question; the transcript of a Hearing held before the

Committee on the Public Lands of the House of Representatives, December 16, 1908 suggests the scope of public concerns.

President Roosevelt issues Proclamations establishing Muir WoodsNational Monument, CA, on land donated to the federalgovernment for that purpose by civic reformer and futureCongressman William Kent; Grand Canyon National Monument,AZ; Pinnacles National Monument, CA; Jewel Cave NationalMonument, SD; Natural Bridges National Monument, UT; Lewisand Clark Cavern National Monument, MT; and Wheeler NationalMonument, CO Another proclamation establishes the NationalBison Range in MT

The Land Classification Board is established within the U.S.Geological Survey to classify natural resources systematically so as

to determine their best use

Dallas Lore Sharp publishes The Lay of the Land, a particularly fine

example of the way in which the era's nature essayists brought theAmerican romance with pastoral nature into the dooryards of thenation's burgeoning suburbs, sustaining an appreciation for wildthings in an ever-more-urban people

With financial support from the Russell Sage Foundation, andreflecting renewed concern for the value of rural life in anincreasingly urban nation, President Roosevelt appoints aCommission on Country Life, headed by Liberty Hyde Bailey andincluding Gifford Pinchot, to study problems of rural life andrecommend measures to ameliorate them; the Commission's

Report, published in 1909, deals chiefly with social and economic

issues, but also draws attention to such conservation problems assoil depletion and deforestation

1909 President Roosevelt convenes the North American Conservation Conference,

representatives of Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, and the UnitedStates Statements of principles of conservation for North Americaare adopted

The National Waterways Commission is created, consisting of 12members of Congress, to conduct investigations and to makerecommendations pertaining to water transportation and theimprovement of waterways

The first National Conservation Congress meets in Seattle, WA, onAugust 26-28.

The Calaveras Bigtree National Forest created by Congress (PL237) on February 8th (35 Stat 626) This act authorizes the

acquisition of lands in California to protect stands of Sequoia

washingtoniana.

issues a proclamation establishing Mount Olympus NationalMonument, Washington The 630,000-acre monument is carvedfrom the center of the Olympic National Forest It is managed bythe Forest Service until 1933 President Taft issues three nationalmonument proclamations establishing Oregon Caves in Oregon,Mukuntuweap in Utah, and Shoshone Cavern in Wyoming

Under the influence of the work of the Inland Waterways

Commission, Herbert Quick publishes American Inland Waterways:

Their Relation to Railway Transportation and to the National Welfare; Their Creation, Restoration and Maintenance, a broad

overview that well illustrates how policymakers in this eraunderstood waterways development as an aspect of conservation

Hetch Hetchy Valley on the north side of Yosemite National Park is actively being

considered for a reservoir site to supply clean water for the City of

San Francisco Outlook magazine becomes a chief organ in the

national campaign to save Hetch Hetchy Valley, publishing twoeditorials on the subject by its editor, Lyman Abbott

For the next several years, conservationists appointed byRoosevelt turn to the general public for support of their policies inthe face of conflict with Congress and appointees of President Taft;

as a result, conservation gains greater national attention, even aspolicy debates also increasingly involve those more anxious topreserve natural resources for aesthetic/spiritual reasons than toput them to practical use

The Fremont Forest Experiment Station is organized near PikesPeak and Manitou Springs on the Pike National Forest in Colorado.The name is changed to the Rocky Mountain Forest ExperimentStation in 1925 This station, after being reduced in function to aresearch unit, becomes a regional research station in 1935

1910 Having publicly leveled charges of official impropriety against Secretary of the

Interior Richard A Ballinger, Gifford Pinchot is dismissed from