What did... Environmentalism look like in the Progressive Era?

 As the United States expanded its cities and businesses, the nature around them started to get damaged. Some people began noticing how the Progressive Era was taking a negative toll on the environment so they started organizations to protect the environment.


One case in which environmentalists helped protect the environment was in the 1880s where engineers and representatives argued over finding a new source of water for San Francisco. They wanted to build a dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley in California to solve this but were unsure of how it would affect nature. Environmentalists eventually came to a consensus on “a kind of environmental utilitarianism that emphasized the efficient use of available resources, through planning and control and “the prevention of waste”. They proceeded to approve and build the project in 1913.


Another case regarded hunting and its effect on wildlife. Some states placed restrictions like a requirement for firearm permits, banning hunting on certain days, labeling certain animals as protected. Laws like this certainly helped protect wildlife populations and nature, but many saw this as very limiting and invasive to freedom. These debates are still held today as the world tries to expand while conserving what we can of the earth.


Contrary to the popular belief that environmentalism is simply focused on nature, activists also fought to make sure work environments for the poor were sanitary, safe, and just. Some of the famous workers, or activists, like “Jane Addams and Florence Kelley focused on questions of health and sanitation, while activists concerned with working conditions, most notably Dr. Alice Hamilton, investigated both worksite hazards and occupational and bodily harm.”


Environmentalist Liberty Hyde Bailey, worked on similar projects. More specifically, he started The Country Life movement which worked to give support to families and youth so that they continue their agrarian customs. Bailey teamed with Anna Botsford Comstock, to establish “the nature study movement” which allowed students to experience and appreciate nature.


“A 1914 political cartoon depicting the completion of the Panama Canal (Open for Business,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/52019b6dc4e90a6a20ffd40ad7920bef


The image shows Hetch Hetchy Valley almost a century later, with damming. (Photograph of the Hetch Hetchy Valley after damming, from Daniel Mayer (photographer), May 2002. Wikimedia.)

Image shows the Hetch Hetchy Valley before it was dammed.(Photograph of the Hetch Hetchy Valley before damming, from the Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1908. Wikimedia; )



Yosemite Valley, California. , 1907. [United States:publisher not transcribed] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018757016/.



View this video to learn more about how tourism at national parks were encouraged!

A 1939 film promoting tourism to national parks (Ford Motor Company, “Glacier National Park,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/725cacf9f8f7c45264a53d038c679914)


Bibliography

Andrew C. Baker et al., “The Progressive Era,” Mary Anne Henderson, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018)

“A 1914 political cartoon depicting the completion of the Panama Canal (Open for Business,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/52019b6dc4e90a6a20ffd40ad7920bef

The image shows Hetch Hetchy Valley almost a century later, with damming. (Photograph of the Hetch Hetchy Valley after damming, from Daniel Mayer (photographer), May 2002. Wikimedia.)

Image shows the Hetch Hetchy Valley before it was dammed.(Photograph of the Hetch Hetchy Valley before damming, from the Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1908. Wikimedia; )

Yosemite Valley, California. , 1907. [United States:publisher not transcribed] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018757016/.

A 1939 film promoting tourism to national parks (Ford Motor Company, “Glacier National Park,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/725cacf9f8f7c45264a53d038c679914)




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