The Origins of Environmental Activism, 1840–1889 41
federal levels for the passage of laws that encour-
aged conservation. In 1873, the AAAS, in a memo
to Congress, requested that laws be passed to pro-
tect the nation’s natural resources, and Grinnell’s
bird protection drive was aided by the American
Ornithologists’ Union, which prepared a model bird
protection law [see Document 55] and printed and
distributed 100,000 copies of it.
Other conservation-minded groups chartered
in the last three decades of the nineteenth cen-
tury included the Appalachian Mountain Club,
formed in 1876, and the Sierra Club, organized in
1892 by John Muir—both of which were primar-
ily hiking clubs that advocated the preservation
of scenic lands for the enjoyment of the public
—and the Boone and Crockett Club, established
in 1887 [see Document 57], which was primarily a
hunting club that promoted the conservation of the
habitats of game animals. These use-oriented organi-
zations, together with the scientific societies and the
advocacy-oriented state Audubon societies, formed a
base of organized public support for the nascent con-
servation movement.
While these nongovernmental organizations were
becoming established, the federal government was start-
ing to look at issues related to the management and con-
servation of resources. The government’s main concerns
were the administration of timber, water, minerals, and
land. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a number
of people were brought into government service to manage
resources and help develop resource management poli-
cies. The recommendations and actions of three of these
individuals—Carl Schurz, Gifford Pinchot, and John
Wesley Powell—greatly affected the course of U.S. envi-
ronmental policy for more than half a century.
Schurz, who served as Secretary of the Interior
from 1877 to 1881, promoted the scientific manage-
ment of forests and recommended that timberland be
set aside [see Document 52]. Pinchot, the first profes-
sional American forester, served as head of the Divi-
sion of Forestry (later called the U.S. Forest Service).
Powell joined the staff of the U.S. Geological Survey
in 1875, and served as its head from 1881 to 1894.
After touring the Southwest, Powell began a cam-
paign to “reclaim” the arid lands of that region [see
Document 58].
Powell’s campaign paralleled the efforts of Loui-
sianans and Alabamans to convince the federal gov-
ernment to enact legislation that would allow them
to drain wetlands [see Document 39]—swamp and
overflow land not suited for cultivation—so that they
could sell the “reclaimed” land to land-hungry buyers.
As a result of these efforts, the large-scale manipula-
tion of the environment to develop agricultural lands,
water resources, and hydroelectric power had become
established federal policy in both arid regions and
wetlands by the beginning of the twentieth century.
The environmentally disastrous consequences of this
policy would not be widely recognized for another
half-century.