Environmental history of the United States

The Environmental history of the United States covers the history of the environment over the centuries to the late 20th century, plus the political and expert debates on conservation and environmental issues. The term "conservation" was gradually replaced by "environmentalism" in the mid 20th century as the focus shifted from managing and protecting natural resources to a broader concern for the environment as a whole.

For recent history see Environmental policy of the United States.

Environmental trends

The Pre-Columbian Environment

Main articles: History of the Americas and Peopling of the Americas

According to Erin Stewart Mauldin, the geological history of the United States predates human settlement by millions of years. The landscape of the North American continent's landscape was shaped by plate tectonics, volcanic activity, and glaciation. The Appalachian Mountains resulted from plate collisions, the Rocky Mountains from the subduction of the Pacific Ocean floor, and the Pacific Northwest and New England from the accretion of microcontinents. Glaciation formed the Great Lakes and influenced soil composition across the country, with volcanic activity contributing to regions like the Columbia Plateau. Paleoindians from Siberia were the continent's first human inhabitants starting 30,000 BCE. They coexisted with megafauna like mammoths. The reasons for these species' extinction, possibly due to climate change or human hunting, remain debated. The absence of large domesticable animals in North America affected the development of societies, limiting hunting and herding and later giving European colonizers a biological edge. Native Americans developed diverse subsistence strategies, including agriculture, hunting, and fishing, with varying practices across regions. They also impacted the landscape through land clearing and hunting practices, leading to environmental changes. The pre-Columbian landscape encountered by Europeans was significantly shaped by human activity, challenging the idea of an untouched wilderness.

History of conservation and environmentalism

According to Chad Montrie, historians largely agree on the basic points of this account: The conservation of natural resources was a significant topic of debate in the early and mid-20th century, highlighted by a tension between the business sector's push for efficient resource utilization and the advocates for preserving wilderness and natural beauty. In the 1960s and 1970s the conservation movement morphed into modern environmentalism. The seminal moment that ignited the transition occurred in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson's ground breaking book, "Silent Spring." Carson's urgent message warned about the perils of harmful chemical pollutants, notably substances like DDT with immediate benefits but long-term detrimental impacts, resonated with an educated audience deeply concerned about quality of life issues. The environmental awakening spurred by Carson's work was further fueled by events like the 1969 televised oil spill off the California coast. It prompted many to join mainstream environmental organizations led by visionaries such as David Brower of the Sierra Club. The momentum was bolstered by the inaugural Earth Day in 1970. President Richard Nixon took proactive steps through executive actions and collaboration with Congress to enact pivotal legislation establishing regulatory frameworks that curbed air and water pollution and mitigated adverse effects of corporate greed and rampant consumerism. The emergence of a more radical activism came in the late 1970s and early 1980s, exemplified by chemical disaster at Love Canal in 1977, and a battle in 1982 against a PCB toxic waste dump in a Black community in North Carolina. The result was confrontational grassroots environmentalism that marked the genesis of the "environmental justice" movement. It focused on issues of toxic substances and addressing concerns of "environmental racism." The collective efforts during this period laid a foundation for ongoing environmental advocacy and policy development aimed at safeguarding our planet for future generations.

Historians, led by William Cronon, have criticized the movement for assuming that "wilderness" and "nature" have a reality beyond their creation in the human imagination. This has upset many environmentalists. Cronon writes, "wilderness serves as the unexamined foundation on which so many of the quasi-religious values of modern environmentalism rest." He argues that "to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead."

White House roles

Theodore Roosevelt presidency 1901-1909

A 1908 editorial cartoon describing Roosevelt as "a practical forester"

Further information: List of lands nationalized by Theodore Roosevelt through executive action

Conservation was a minor issue for most presidents. Theodore Roosevelt carved a leadership role that several successors followed.

Roosevelt was a prominent conservationist, putting the issue high on his national agenda. He changed the land by creating 50 wildlife refuges, 18 national monuments, and five national parks, and above all by publicizing conservation issues. Roosevelt's conservation efforts were aimed not just at environment protection, but also at ensuring that society as a whole, rather than just select individuals or companies, benefited from the country's natural resources. His key adviser on conservation matters was Gifford Pinchot, the head of the Bureau of Forestry. Roosevelt increased Pinchot's power over environmental issues by transferring control over national forests from the Department of the Interior to the Bureau of Forestry, which was part of the Agriculture Department. Pinchot's agency was renamed to the United States Forest Service, and Pinchot presided over the implementation of assertive conservationist policies in national forests. Under William Howard Taft, Pinchot had a heavily publicized dispute over environmental policy with Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger that led to Pinchot's dismissal and to Roosvelt's break with Taft in 1912.

Roosevelt relied on the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, which promoted federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres (360,000 mi² or 930,000 km²) under federal protection. In 1906, Congress passed the Antiquities Act, granting the president the power to create national monuments in federal lands. Roosevelt set aside more federal land, national parks, and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined. Roosevelt established the Inland Waterways Commission to coordinate construction of water projects for both conservation and transportation purposes, and in 1908 he hosted the Conference of Governors. This was the first time governors had ever met together and the goal was to boost and coordinate support for conservation. Roosevelt then established the National Conservation Commission to take an inventory of the nation's natural resources.

Opposition

Roosevelt's policies faced opposition from both liberal environmental activists like John Muir and conservative opponents of conservation like Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado. While Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, wanted nature preserved for the sake of pure beauty, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." Teller and other opponents of conservation, meanwhile, believed that conservation would prevent the economic development of the West and feared the centralization of power in Washington. The backlash to Roosevelt's ambitious policies prevented further conservation efforts in the final years of Roosevelt's presidency and would later contribute to the Pinchot–Ballinger controversy during the Taft administration.

Franklin D Roosevelt, 1933-1945

Conservation and the environment

Franklin D. Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in the environment and conservation starting with his youthful interest in forestry on his family estate. Although he was never an outdoorsman or sportsman on the scale of his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt, his presidential role in expandthe national systems was comparable. When Franklin was Governor of New York, the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration was essentially a state-level predecessor of the federal Civilian Conservation Corps, with 10,000 or more men building fire trails, combating soil erosion and planting tree seedlings in marginal farmland in New York. As President, Roosevelt was active in expanding, funding, and promoting the National Park and National Forest systems. Their popularity soared, from three million visitors a year at the start of the decade to 15.5 million in 1939. The Civilian Conservation Corps enrolled 3.4 million young men and built 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometres) of trails, planted two billion trees, and upgraded 125,000 miles (201,000 kilometres) of dirt roads. Every state had its own state parks, and Roosevelt made sure that WPA and CCC projects were set up to upgrade them as well as the national systems.

Eisenhower presidency, 1953-1960

Main article: Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower § Environmental policy

The environmental movement was slowly starting to grow in the 1950s. Liberals (and the Democratic Party) wanted national control of natural resources—the level at which organized ideological pressures were effective. Conservatives (and the Republican Party) wanted state or local control, whereby the financial benefit to local businesses and jobs could be decisive. In a debate going back to the early 20th century, preservationists wanted to protect the inherent natural beauty of the national parks, whereas economic maximizers wanted to build dams and divert water flows. Eisenhower articulated the conservative position in December 1953, declaring that conservation was not about "locking up and putting resources beyond the possibility of wastage or usage," but instead involved "the intelligent use of all the resources we have, for the welfare and benefit of all the American people." Liberals and environmentalists forced the resignation of Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay in 1956. He was a businessman with little intererest in the environment who allegedly promoted "giveaways" to mining companies regardless of environmental damage.

Eisenhower's personal activity on environmental issues came in foreign policy. He supported the UN convention of 1958 that provided a strong foundation for international accords governing the use of the world's high seas, especially regarding fishing interests. Eisenhower also promoted the peaceful use of atomic energy for the production of electricity, with strong controls against diversion into nuclear weapons. However, there was little attention to nuclear waste.

Kennedy and Johnson presidencies, 1961-1968

Further information: Presidency of John F. Kennedy and Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson

President Johnson signs the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act into law, October, 1968. His wife Lady Bird Johnson is in red.

John F Kennedy was a city boy like his constituents. He did not hunt or fish, hike or explore, nor seek out the wilderness. He did greatly enjoy the ocean and the seashore but otherwise the environment and environmentalism bored him.

The 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson brought new attention to environmentalism and the danger that pollution and pesticide poisoning (i.e., DDT) posed to public health.

When Vice President Lyndon Johnson succeeded the assassinated president in November 1973, he retained Kennedy's staunchly pro-environment Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall. Johnson helped pass a series a series of bills designed to protect the environment. He signed into law the Clean Air Act of 1963, which had been proposed by Kennedy. The Clean Air Act set emission standards for stationary emitters of air pollutants and directed federal funding to air quality research. In 1965, the act was amended by the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, which directed the federal government to establish and enforce national standards for controlling the emission of pollutants from new motor vehicles and engines. In 1967, Johnson and Senator Edmund Muskie led passage of the Air Quality Act of 1967, which increased federal subsidies for state and local pollution control programs.

During his time as President, Johnson signed over 300 conservation measures into law, forming the legal basis of the modern environmental movement. In September 1964, he signed a law establishing the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which aids the purchase of land used for federal and state parks. That same month, Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, which established the National Wilderness Preservation System; saving 9.1 million acres of forestland from industrial development.

In 1965, Muskie led passage of the Water Quality Act of 1965, though conservatives stripped a provision of the act that would have given the federal government the authority to set clean water standards. The Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, the first piece of comprehensive endangered species legislation, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to list native species of fish and wildlife as endangered and to acquire endangered species habitat for inclusion in the National Wildlife Refuge System. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 established the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The system includes more than 220 rivers, and covers more than 13,400 miles of rivers and streams. The National Trails System Act of 1968 created a nationwide system of scenic and recreational trails.

As First Lady and trusted presidential confidant, Lady Bird Johnson helped establish the public environmental movement in the 1960s. She worked to beautify Washington D.C. by planting thousands of flowers, set up the White House Natural Beauty Conference, and lobbied Congress for the president's full range of environmental initiatives. In 1965, she took the lead in calling for passage of the Highway Beautification Act. The act called for control of outdoor advertising, including removal of certain types of signs, along the nation's growing Interstate Highway System and the existing federal-aid primary highway system. It also required certain junkyards along Interstate or primary highways to be removed or screened and encouraged scenic enhancement and roadside development. According to Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall, she single-handedly, "influenced the president to demand-and support-more far-sighted conservation legislation."

Nixon presidency, 1969-1974

Main articles: Presidency of Richard Nixon § Environmental policy, and Russell E. Train

Richard Nixon (President 1969–1975) came late to the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the 1968 election, and the media rarely asked about the subject. Nixon broke the silence by highlighting the environment in his State of the Union speech in 1970:

The great question of the seventies is: shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water? Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later. Clean air, clean water, open spaces—these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

The president then introduced 36 environmental initiatives, and proclaimed the first Earth Day in April 1970. He was amazed at the national excitement over Earth Day, and sought ways to use the environment to his political advantage. He strongly supported advisors who deeply believed in environmentalism, especially Russell E. Train and John Ehrlichman. In June 1970 Nixon announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), using an Executive order that did not require Congressional approval. Other beakthrough initiatives supported by Nixon included the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). His National Environmental Policy Act required environmental impact statements for many Federal projects. Furthermore, he put protection of the global environment on the international diplomatic agenda for the first time in world history. Then Nixon reversed himself and in 1972 he vetoed the Clean Water Act —objecting not to the policy goals of the legislation but to the amount of money to be spent on them, which he deemed excessive. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.

Nixon's achievements

Political scientists Byron Daines and Glenn Sussman identify six major achievements for which they give credit to Nixon.

• He broadened the attention span of the Republican Party to include environmental issues, for the first time since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. He thereby "dislodged the Democratic Party from its position of dominance over the environment."
• He used presidential powers, and promoted legislation in Congress to create a permanent political structure, most notably the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and others.
• He helped ensure that Congress build a permanent structure supportive of environmentalism, especially the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which enjoined all federal agencies to help protect the environment.
• Nixon appointed a series of strong environmentalists in highly visible positions, most notably William Ruckelshaus, Russell Train, Russell W. Peterson, and John C. Whitaker (who was a senior White House aide for four years, becoming Undersecretary of the Interior in 1973).
• Nixon initiated worldwide diplomatic attention to environmental issues, working especially with NATO.
• Finally, state: "Nixon did not have to be personally committed to the environment to become one of the most successful presidents in promoting environmental priorities."

Historians pose a strange paradox regarding Nixon. In 1970-1971 he unexpectedly emerged as a great environmentalist who deserves credit for several of the most important environmental laws in American history. By 1972, however, he suddenly moved far to the right, despising environmentalists as left-wing fanatics who would bankrupt the economy.

For subsequent presidents see Environmental policy of the United States.

Organizations

There are a multitude of environmental organizations--over 160 are covered at the List of environmental and conservation organizations in the United States. However the "Group of Ten" (or "Big Green") have been preeminent since the late 20th century: Sierra Club (founded 1892); Audubon (founded 1905); National Parks Conservation Association (1919); Izaak Walton League (1922); National Wildlife Federation (1936); The Wilderness Society (1937); Environmental Defense Fund (1967); Friends of the Earth (1969); Natural Resources Defense Council (1970); and Earthjustice (1971).

The Sierra Club

Main articles: Sierra Club, John Muir, and David Brower

The Sierra Club is a major environmental organization. It was founded in May, 1892, by preservationist John Muir (1838–1914). He became the first president serving for 20 years. The Club did not engage in lobbying. Instead it provided its upscale clientele with outdoor adventures, such as guided tours, wilderness camping and mountain climbing. Reform-minded activists known as the "John Muir Sierrans" wanted a more aggressive role in protecting the environment. They brought in the hyperenergetic and controversial David Brower (1912–2000) as Executive Director 1952 to 1969. The Club now became the first large-scale environmental preservation organization in the world, best known for systematic lobbying of politicians to promote environmentalist policies. Recent focuses of the club include promoting sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as opposition to the use of coal, hydropower, and nuclear power. The organization takes strong positions on issues that sometimes create controversy, criticism, or opposition either internally or externally or both. The club is known for its political endorsements generally supporting liberal and progressive candidates in elections.

After 1952 Brower led Sierra, in cooperation with the Wilderness Society and local activists in a fierce battle against building the Echo Park Dam in Utah's Dinosaur National Monument. Conservationists successfully lobbied Congress to delete Echo Park Dam from the Colorado River Storage Project in 1955, and the Sierra Club received much of the credit. Under Brower's leadership, Sierra's membership grew rapidly, from 7,000 in 1952 to 70,000 members in 1969. It was the largest and most prominent conservation organization. Building on the biennial Wilderness Conferences which the Club launched in 1949 together with The Wilderness Society, Brower helped win passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Brower and the Sierra Club also led a major battle to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from building two dams that would flood portions of the Grand Canyon. Brower was keen on publicity and sponsored numerous heavily illustrated books to promote knowledge and admiration for the nation's wilderness. On the other hand powerful members of Congress fought for new high dams to use water power to promote the local economy, regardless of the flooding they caused to wilderness areas. Their leader in Congress was Wayne N. Aspinall, the Democrat from western Colorado who dominated the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs as chairman from 1959 to 1973. Brower complained that the environmental movement had seen "dream after dream dashed on the stony continents of Wayne Aspinall." The congressman shot back that the environmentalists were "over-indulged zealots" and "aristocrats" to whom "balance means nothing."

The Wilderness Society

Main article: The Wilderness Society (United States)

The Wilderness Society is a non-profit conservation organization founded in 1937 by Bob Marshall (1901–1939), who largely funded its startup. It is dedicated to protecting natural areas and federal public lands in the United States and advocates for the designation of federal wilderness areas and other protective designations, such as for national monuments. It calls for balanced uses of public lands, and advocate for federal politicians to enact various land conservation and balanced land use proposals. The Society specializes in issues involving lands under the management of federal agencies; such lands include national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and areas overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. In the early 21st century, the society has been active in fighting recent political efforts to reduce protection for America's roadless and undeveloped lands and wildlife. It was instrumental in the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act. The primary drafter of the Wilderness Act was Howard Zahniser (1906–1964), who served as executive secretary of the Wilderness Society from 1945 until his death. The Wilderness Act led to the creation of the National Wilderness Preservation System, which protects 109 million acres of U.S. public wildlands.

Activism

Environmental justice

Main article: Environmental justice

Environmental justice or eco-justice, is a social movement to address environmental injustice, which occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement began in the United States in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the American civil rights movement and focused on environmental racism within rich countries. The movement was later expanded to consider gender, international environmental injustice, and inequalities within marginised groups. As the movement achieved some success in rich countries, environmental burdens were shifted to the Global South (as for example through extractivism or the global waste trade). The movement for environmental justice has thus become more global, with some of its aims now being articulated by the United Nations. The movement overlaps with movements for Indigenous land rights and for the human right to a healthy environment.

The goal of the environmental justice movement is to achieve agency for marginalised communities in making environmental decisions that affect their lives. The global environmental justice movement arises from local environmental conflicts in which environmental defenders frequently confront multi-national corporations in resource extraction or other industries. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by trans-national environmental justice networks. Environmental justice scholars have produced a large interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes contributions to political ecology, environmental law, and theories of sustainability.

Leadership

See Category:American environmentalists

• Ansel Adams
• Bruce Babbitt
• David Brower
• Rachel Carson
• Barry Commoner
• William Cronon
• William O. Douglas
• Al Gore
• Lady Bird Johnson
• Aldo Leopold
• George Perkins Marsh
• Robert Marshall
• John Muir
• Gifford Pinchot
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Dorceta Taylor
• Henry David Thoreau
• Russell E. Train
• Stewart Udall
• Howard Zahniser

See also

• Conservation in the United States, history of activism
  • The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850–1920 an exhibit from Library of Congress
  • American Society for Environmental History
  • Conservation organizations based in the United States
• Environmental history, global perspective
  • Forestry
  • Timeline of environmental history, history of humanity's influence and perspective
  • Timeline of history of environmentalism, on organized efforts
• Environmental movement in the United States
  • Prairie restoration
• Pittman–Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, of 1937
• North American Game Warden Museum
• List of conservation issues
• Environmental policy of the United States
  • United States Bureau of Reclamation on water policy
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency
  • United States environmental law
  • Pittman–Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act
• Environmental issues in the United States, current issues
  • Environmental justice
  • Environmental protection
  • Environmental science
    • Environmental education in the United States
  • Environmental justice
    • Environmental racism in the United States
  • Environmental impacts of the Mexico–United States border
  • Holocene extinction#Americas, extinction of species caused by human action
    • Talk:List of North American animals extinct in the Holocene

Further reading

General

• Allitt, Patrick. A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (2014), wide-ranging scholarly history since 1950s excerpt
• Andrews, Richard N.L., Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy (Yale UP, 1999)
• Black, Brian C., and Donna L. Lybecker. Great Debates in American Environmental History (2 vol. Greenwood, 2008), covers 150 topics in encyclopedic fashion with pro and con arguments. online book review

• Bates, J. Leonard. "Fulfilling American Democracy: The Conservation Movement, 1907 to 1921", Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1957) 44#1 pp. 29–57. in JSTOR
• Becher, Anne. American environmental leaders: From colonial times to the present (2 vol. ABC-CLIO, 2000) 320 brief biographies; vol 1 online
• Browning, Judkin and Timothy Silver. An Environmental History of the Civil War (2020) online review
• Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring (Riverside Press, 1962)
• Cohen, Michael P. The History of the Sierra Club, 1892–1970 (1988) online
• Dauvergne, Peter. The A to Z of Environmentalism (Scarecrow, 2009), worldwide coverage; online
• Drake, Brian Allen, ed. The Blue, the Gray, and the Green: Toward an Environmental History of the Civil War (U of Georgia Press, 2015) online
• Gottlieb, Robert, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington: Island Press, 1993) online

• Hay, Peter, ed. Main currents in western environmental thought (Indiana UP, 2002). online
• Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–1985 (1987), a standard scholarly history
• Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement 1890–1920 (Harvard UP, 1959), influential pioneer study
• Hays, Samuel P. A History of Environmental Politics since 1945 (2000), online
• McGurty, Eileen Maura. "Warren County, NC, and the emergence of the environmental justice movement: Unlikely coalitions and shared meanings in local collective action." Society & Natural Resources 13.4 (2000): 373-387. DOI:10.1080/089419200279027
• Mauch, Christof, and Thomas Zeller, eds. Rivers in history: perspectives on waterways in Europe and North America (U of Pittsburgh Press, 2008).
• Melosi, Martin V. Coping with Abundance: Energy and Environment in Industrial America (Temple UP, 1985)
• Merchant, Carolyn. American environmental history: An introduction (Columbia UP, 2007), a slightly revised 2nd edition; the first edition was published as The Columbia guide to American environmental history (Columbia UP, 2002). online 2007 edition
• Miller, Char. The Atlas of U.S. and Canadian Environmental History (2012)
• Miller, Char. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (2001)
• Nash, Roderick. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (U of Wisconsin Press, 1989)
• Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind, (4th ed. 2001), a standard intellectual history of the concept of wilderness
• Paehlke, Robert, ed. Conservation and environmentalism: an encyclopedia (Garland, 1995). online
• Pyne, Stephen. Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire (Princeton UP, 1982). online
• Rome, Adam. Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism (2001) online
• Rothman, Hal K. The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the United States since 1945 (Harcourt Brace, 1998). ISBN 0155028553.
• Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–1999 (Hill & Wang, 1993) [1]
• Scheffer, Victor B. The Shaping of Environmentalism in America (1991).
• Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History (Oxford UP, 2002)
• Strong, Douglas H. Dreamers & Defenders: American Conservationists. (1988) biographical studies of the major leaders
• Taylor, Dorceta E. The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection (Duke UP, 2016) online
• Turner, James Morton, "The Specter of Environmentalism": Wilderness, Environmental Politics, and the Evolution of the New Right. The Journal of American History 96.1 (2009): 123–47 online at History Cooperative
• Unger, Nancy C., Beyond Nature's Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History. (Oxford UP, 2012)
• Whitney, Gordon G. From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America from 1500 to the Present (1994)
• Wyss, Robert. The Man Who Built the Sierra Club: A Life of David Brower ( Columbia University Press, 2016). ISBN 978-0231164467

Presidential studies

• Bryce, Emma. "America’s Greenest Presidents' New York Times Sept 20, 2012; a poll of scholars ranks Theodore Roosevelt as #1 followed by Nixon, Carter, Obama, Jefferson, Ford, FDR, and Clinton online

• Brinkley, Douglas. Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening (2022) excerpt
• Brinkley, Douglas G. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, (2009) excerpt and text search
• Brinkley, Douglas G. Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America (2016) excerpt
  • Blumm, Michael C. "The Nation's First Forester-in-Chief: The Overlooked Role of FDR and the Environment." Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law 33 (2017): 25–60. A review of Brinkley (2016). online
• Cannon, Jonathan, and Jonathan Riehl. "Presidential greenspeak: How presidents talk about the environment and what it means." Stanford Environmental Law Journal 23 (2004): 195–272. online
• Clements, Kendrick A. "Herbert Hoover and conservation, 1921-33." American Historical Review 89.1 (1984): 67-88. online
• Coodley, Gregg, and David Sarasohn. The Green Years, 1964–1976: When Democrats and Republicans United to Repair the Earth (UP of Kansas, 2021) online
• Cutright, Paul Russell. Theodore Roosvelt the naturalist (1956) online
• Cutright, Paul Russell. Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist (U of Illinois Press, 1985) online
• Daynes, Byron W. and Glen Sussman. White House Politics and the Environment: Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush (Texas A&M UP, 2010) online
• Flippen, J. Brooks. "Richard Nixon, Russell Train, and the birth of modern American environmental diplomacy." Diplomatic History 32.4 (2008): 613-638.
• Flippen, J. Brooks. "Conservative Conservationist: Russell E. Train and the Emergence of American Environmentalism" (LSU Press, 2006)
• Flippen, J. Brooks. Nixon and the Environment (2000) online
• Gould, Lewis L. "First Lady as Catalyst: Lady Bird Johnson and Highway Beautification in the 1960s." Environmental Review 10.2 (1986): 76-92.
• Graham Jr., Otis L. Presidents and the American Environment (UP of Kansas, 2015) online
• King, Judson. The Conservation Fight, From Theodore Roosevelt to the Tennessee Valley Authority (2009)
• Kotlowski, Dean J.; "Richard Nixon and the Origins of Affirmative Action" The Historian. Volume: 60. Issue: 3. 1998. pp. 523 ff.
• Kotlowski, Dean J. "Deeds Versus Words: Richard Nixon and Civil Rights Policy." New England Journal of History 1999–2000 56(2–3): 122–144.
• Landy, Marc K. et al. The Environmental Protection Agency: From Nixon to Clinton (2nd ed. Oxford UP, 1994)
• Lindstrom, Matthew J. ed. Encyclopedia of the U.S. Government and the Environment (2 vol ABC-CLIO, 2010), 950pp
• Macekura, Stephen. "The limits of the global community: the Nixon administration and global environmental politics." Cold War History 11.4 (2011): 489–518.
• Melosi, Martin V. "Environmental Policy" in A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson, ed. by Mitchell B. Lerner. (Blackwell, 2012) pp.187-209.
• Melosi, Martin V. "Lyndon Johnson and Environmental Policy,' in Robert Divine, ed., The Johnson Years, Volume Two: Vietnam, The Environment and Science (U of Kansas Press, 1987), pp.113–149

• Pinkett, Harold T. Gifford Pinchot: Private and Public Forester (U of Illinois Press, 1970).
• Richardson, Elmo. Dams, Parks and Politics: Resource Development and Preservation the Truman-Eisenhower Era (1973) online
• Short, C. Brant. Ronald Reagan and the Public Lands: America's Conservation Debate (1989).
• Soden, Dennis, ed. The Environmental Presidency (SUNY, 1999) online
• Sussman, Glen, and Byron W. Daynes. "Spanning the century: Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and the environment." White House Studies 4.3 (2004): 337-355. online
• Swain, Donald C. National Conservation Policy: Federal Conservation Policy, 1921-1933 (U of California Press, 1963) online
• Train, Russell E. "The environmental record of the Nixon administration." Presidential Studies Quarterly 26.1 (1996): 185-196. online
• Woolner, David, and H. Henderson, eds. FDR and the Environment (Springer, 2015) online.

Regions

• Brosnan, Kathleen A. et al. eds. City of Lake and Prairie: Chicago's Environmental History (U of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) online
• Castaneda, Christopher J., and Lee M. A. Simpson, eds. River city and valley life: an environmental history of the Sacramento region (U of Pittsburgh Press, 2013) in California; online
• Cawley, R. McGreggor. Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics (1993), on conservatives
• Cowdrey, Albert E. This Land, This South: An Environmental History (UP of Kentucky, 1995).
• Cronon, William, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (Hill and Wang, 1983)
• Cronon, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (W.W. Norton, 1991)
• Cumbler, John T. Reasonable use: The people, the environment, and the state. New England 1790-1930. (Oxford U), 2001).
• Cunfer, Geoff, and Bill Waiser, eds. Bison and people on the North American Great Plains: A deep environmental history (Texas A&M University Press, 2016) online.
• Dant, Sara. Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West. (U of Nebraska Press, 2023). online, also see online book review
• Davis, D. E., ed. Southern United States: An Environmental History (ABC-CLIO, 2006) online
• Flores, Dan. The natural west: Environmental history in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (U of Oklahoma Press, 2003) online.
• Fradkin, Philip. A River No More: The Colorado River and the West (1981)
• Frehner, Brian, and Kathleen A. Brosnan, eds. The Greater Plains: Rethinking a Region's Environmental Histories (U of Nebraska Press, 2021) online.
• Harrison, Blake, et al. A Landscape History of New England (2011)
• Harvey, Mark W. T. "Echo Park, Glen Canyon, and the postwar wilderness movement." Pacific Historical Review (1991): 43-67. online Colorado River region
• Judd, Richard W. Common Lands and Common People, The Origins of Conservation in Northern New England (1997)
• Reisner, Marc. Cadillac desert: The American West and its disappearing water (Penguin, 1993) says the villain was the federal Bureau of Reclamation see [2]; also see online copy.
• Rice, James D. Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson (2009), near Washington DC
• Sayen, Jamie. Children of the Northern Forest: Wild New England's History from Glaciers to Global Warming (Yale UP, 2023). the story of northern New England’s undeveloped forests
• Sturgeon, Stephen Craig. The politics of western water: the congressional career of Wayne Aspinall (U of Arizona Press, 2002).
• Vogel, David. California greenin': How the Golden State became an environmental leader (Princeton UP, 2019).
• Wild, Peter. Pioneer Conservationists of Western America (1979) online
• Worster, Donald. Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (Oxford UP, 1992) online
• Zimring, Carl A., and Steven H. Corey, eds. Coastal Metropolis: Environmental Histories of Modern New York City (U of Pittsburgh Press, 2021) [3].

Historiography

• Coates, Peter. "Emerging from the Wilderness (or, from Redwoods to Bananas): Recent Environmental History in the United States and the Rest of the Americas," Environment and History 10 (2004), pp. 407–38 online

• Coulter, Kimberly, and Christof Mauch, eds. The Future of Environmental History: Needs and Opportunities ( Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, 2011).
• Cronon, William, ed. Uncommon Ground Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (W.W. Norton, 1995) 16 essays by experts.
• Hays, Samuel P. Explorations In Environmental History (U of Pittsburgh Press, 1998) essays by Hays ISBN 13: 9780822956433 online
• Hersey, Mark D., and Ted Steinberg, eds. A Field on Fire: The Future of Environmental History (2019).
• Lee, Lawrence B. "100 years of reclamation historiography." Pacific Historical Review 47.4 (1978): 507-564.online; Covers 1) irrigation , 1878-1902, 2) reclamation service, 3) agricultural settlement, 1902-28, 4) engineering 1887-1953, 5) Department of Agriculture, 1898-1938, 6) historians, 1898-1978, and 7) challenges to Bureau
• Lynch, Tom, et al. eds. The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place (U of Georgia Press, 2011), focus on literature; online
• Mauldin, Erin Stewart. "The United States in Global Environmental History" in A Companion to Global Environmental History ed. by J. R. McNeill, Erin Stewart Mauldin. (2012) pp. 132-152; online
• Mohai, P.; Pellow, D.; Roberts, J. T. (2009). "Environmental Justice". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 34: 405. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-082508-094348.
• Nash, Roderick (1972). "American Environmental History: A New Teaching Frontier". Pacific Historical Review. 41 (3): 362–372. doi:10.2307/3637864. JSTOR 3637864.
• Sackman, Douglas Cazaux, ed. A Companion to American Environmental History (2010), 696pp; 33 essays by scholars that emphasize the historiography; online

• White, Richard (1985). "Environmental History: The Development of a New Historical Field". Pacific Historical Review. 54 (3): 297–335. doi:10.2307/3639634. JSTOR 3639634.

Primary sources

• Foss, Philip O. ed. Conservation in the United States A Documentary History : Recreation (1971) online 808pp covering parks, hunting, fishing, forests, lakes, highway beautification
• McHenry, Robert and Charles Van Doren, eds. A documentary history of conservation in America (Praeger, 1972) online
• McKibben, Bill, ed. American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, (Library of America, 2008); 1080 pages of excerpts from 96 authors, plus 82 illustrations.
• Nash, Roderick, ed. The American Environment : Readings in the History of Conservation (1968);
  • Nash, American environmentalism : readings in conservation history (2nd expanded edition, 1980)
• Nicoll, Don. "Train, Russell oral history interview." (1999). online

• Nixon, Edgar B. ed. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation, 1911-1945 (2 vol. 1957); vol 1 online; also see vol 2 online, covers governorship and presidency

• Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground (1947) online

• Smith, Frank E. ed. Conservation in the United States: A Documentary History: Land and Water 1900-1970 (1971), 785pp
• Stoll, Steven, ed. U.S. Environmentalism since 1945: A Brief History with Documents (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
• Stradling, David, ed. Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts (U of Washington Press, 2004), primary sources

External links

• H-Environment web resource for students of environmental history
• American Society for Environmental History
• Environmental History Now
• Environmental History Resources
• Environmental History Timeline
• Environmental History on the Internet

• "The Evolution of the Conservation Movement" historical documents and illustrations, 1850 to 1920, from the Library of Congress (these are no longer copyright)
• Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society and its Environment & Society Portal
• Forest History Society
• HistoricalClimatology.com Explores climate history, a form of environmental history.
• Climate History Network Network of climate historians.
• Top 23 Global Nonprofits Protecting the Environment

Journals

• Environmental History, Co-published quarterly by the American Society for Environmental History and the (US) Forest History Society
  • JSTOR: All Volumes and Issues - Browse - Environmental History [1996–2007 (Volumes 1–12)]
  • JSTOR: All Volumes and Issues - Browse - Forest & Conservation History [1990–1995 (Volumes 34–39)]
  • JSTOR: All Volumes and Issues - Browse - Environmental Review: ER [1976–1989 (Volumes 1–13)]
  • JSTOR: All Volumes and Issues - Browse - Environmental History Review [1990–1995 (Volumes 14–19)]
  • JSTOR: All Volumes and Issues - Browse - Journal of Forest History [1974–1989 (Volumes 18–33)]
  • JSTOR: All Volumes and Issues - Browse - Forest History [1957–1974 (Volumes 1–17)]
• Nixon on environment, an exhibit by the Nixon Foundation