National Parks in Historical Context,
1890-1920’s
Establishment of National Parks and Forests
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NP system a product of and/or reaction to:
• Urbanization
• Industrialization
• Progressives
• Professionalization
• Increased federal gov’t roles and powers
• New forms of nationalism
• Cultural changes
– Recreation, “the outdoors,” “wilderness”
Urbanization
Definitions:
• Incr. percentage or people live in cities
and/or
• Cities getting bigger
1920 U.S. Census milestone:
50/50 urban/rural split
(“urban” = 10,000 people)
Urbanization
• Some of densest population in history
– 1890, NYC south of Wall Street: 1.5 million people
• “Urban planning” in infancy
– Few municipal agencies in 1890
• No blanket coverage of police, fire, sanitation
• Sometimes private police and firefighters
• Poor sanitation
–NYC in 1900: 100,000 horses
»2.5 millions pounds of manure daily
»“Clean” streets = neat piles
»Replaced by cars, buses, trains
Urbanization
• “Urban planning” in infancy
– Few zoning laws, building regulations
• Running water, sewer optional
• Unregulated living conditions
• Services dependent on neighborhood
politicians
– Traffic control a novelty
• 1000’s of deaths annually from horse vs.
pedestrian accidents
Downtown Chicago, 1909
Urbanization and Technological Change
• Stronger, cheaper steel
– Skyscraper architecture
• Steel stronger, lighter, more flexible than stone
• Entirely new shapes and scale for buildings
– Mass-produced bicycles, automobiles
• Elevators
– Social change: higher floors are better
– Before elevators: lower floors are better
• Electricity
– Lights at night = radically transformed sense of time
Ex.: baseball games at night
Urbanization
History of the U.S. West as much about cities as
about “wide open spaces”
Far West urbanizing in late 19th C
– Growing first, organizing and planning later
Seattle fire, 1889
– “Growing pains” nowadays associated with
developing countries
Urbanization
Far West urbanizing in late 19th C
– Rapidly increasing demands for:
Water, wood, farmland, space
In tension with (and inspiring) new conservation
movements
– Western cities in late 19th century more
radically engineered than Eastern ones
In a sense, less “natural” than E. cities
Example: Seattle in early 1900’s
Urbanization
• Urban problems a main focus of the Progressive
movement, 1890-1917
To “clean up” the cities, literally and figuratively
• Sanitation
• End political corruption
• Create municipal services
The Progressives
Ideas and assumptions
Progress with a capital P
Humans can destroy old social evils:
Disease, homelessness, alcoholism, war
Improvement through knowledge
Rely on experts and professionals
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The Progressives
Ideas and assumptions
 Improving morality improves society
Ex.: alcohol as moral and social problem
 Largely accepted modern economic system
Stop abuses, make system kinder to the most
disadvantaged
 Generally conservative about race,
ethnicity, gender, immigration, etc.
 Watchwords:
Order, efficiency, cleanliness, health, experts
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Women’s organizations at the center of
progressivism
 Often based on Victorian-era gender assumptions:
Women cleaner, kinder, more spiritual, more moral
Women civilize men, who are “naturally”
competitive, dirty, mean, and violent
Women “natural” experts on:
household issues, children, education, manners,
peace, order
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 Suffrage movement = “First wave” feminism =
securing basic legal rights, not much questioning of basic
gender ideas
 Idea: Women should vote precisely because women
are *different* from men
Ex.: If you want society to be kind, clean, and
peaceful, women must vote
 Especially at the end of World War I
The bloodiest war in human history =
See what happens when men run the world?
Assumption: women voters will prevent unnecessary
wars.
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 Women’s suffrage in global context
By 1918-20, looked moderate, even conservative,
compared to revolutionary movements in Europe
and the U.S.
Big assumption among male American politicians:
Women voters would never support revolutions
Therefore:
Passing women’s suffrage will prevent even
more radical changes.
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18th and 19th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
 1919: 18th Amendment
– Prohibition
 1920: 19th Amendment – national women’s suffrage
1/3 of states already allowed women to vote by that
point
Already common in West, including the PNW
 Both Progressive achievements
 Both supported by same groups, same voters
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The Progressives
Greater roles for government in society
Food safety and consumer protection
Ex.: Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Workers’ rights
Breaking up monopolies
“Blue laws”
regulations on alcohol consumption, business
on Sunday, etc.
Natural resource conservation/preservation
Ex.: National Parks system
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Progressives and Natural Resources
Gifford Pinchot – conservation
 Influential gov’t official under T. Roosevelt
 Scientifically trained forestry expert
 “Managed use”
 Limit damage from private greed
 NP’s open to business use, as long as
businesses acted responsibly
 “Reclamation” – making natural world
useful for humans
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Progressives and Natural Resources
John Muir – preservation
 Founder of the Sierra Club
 At first, exclusively urban professionals
 Set aside areas for long-term public
use
 Landscape as natural temple, benefits human
health and spirit
 Ex.: NP’s should have hotels, to give
“healing power of nature…[for] thousands of
tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people.”
 NOT wilderness for its own sake
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Progressives and Natural Resources
Teddy Roosevelt – both and neither
 Appointed Pinchot, friends with Muir
 First U.S. president with extensive experience
living and working out west
 National parks to be source of national pride
 Limit monopoly power of large companies
 NP’s as much about fighting corporations as
preserving nature
 Outdoor life to restore “manly vigor”
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Progressives and Natural Resources
Under TR as president, US gov’t created
 6 National Parks
 18 National Monuments
 50 bird sanctuaries
 150 National Forests
 Meanwhile:
Newlands Reclamation Act (1902) to
“conquer” deserts out West and promote
population growth
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Conflict over Hetch Hetchy Valley
Part of Yosemite National Park
Issue, early 1900’s: to dam or not to dam?
Partial explanation – a conflict over ideas:
conservation/Pinchot (dam) vs. preservation/Muir (no dam)
Better explanation – conflict between competing uses:
water/power interests (dam)
vs.
tourism and recreation interests (no dam)
NOT simple fight of “development vs. wilderness”
NOT simple fight of “greed vs. nature”
Conflict over Hetch Hetchy
• 1890 – Yosemite established as national park
• 1903 – TR’s secretary of the interior blocked
SF’s plan to dam Tuolumne R.; Muir rejoices
• 1906 – SF earthquake and fire; enormous
national sympathy for the city
• 1907 – TR reversed earlier decision and
approved the dam project
Then, he designated a redwood sanctuary
nearby and named it for Muir
Conflict over Hetch Hetchy
• 1910 – Hiram Johnson and other Progressives
sweep into CA state gov’t
Issue: Pubic ownership vs. private ownership, not
development vs. nature
Supported dam project, because:
City needs the water, and to prevent private
corporation from taking over the project
Acc. to Johnson: Muir was a naive “nature faker”
or secretly working for a private power company
Conflict over Hetch Hetchy
• 1913 – Raker Act, authorizing O’Shaughnessy
Dam, completed in 1923
• Wilson’s Sec. of Interior, Franklin Lane, 1913:
“The mountains are our enemy. We must pierce
them and make them serve. The sinful rivers we
must curb.”
[Similar to what TR said about the Panama Canal,
his favorite project.]
Conflict over Hetch Hetchy
• 1914 – Muir dies, still cursing the “dark damndam-damnation”
• Fight over Hetch Hetchy inspired preservation
movement to fight even harder
Result: National Park Service Act, 1916
• 1980’s-present – “restoration ecology” and
related movements
– Modern environmentalism: dams in the Far West
represent extreme human arrogance
– Solution: remove dams and return to earlier state