Environmental Movement Historical Timeline
Industrial
1861 – Civil War creates may environmental problems
1862 – Dept of Agriculture Established
1863 – Thomas Huxley’s “The question of questions for mankind… What are the limits of our power over nature,
and of nature’s power over us?”
1862 – George Perkin’s Marsh write Man and Nature
1864 – Bill introduced to protect Yosemite
1866 – Charles Dickens writes about lead poisoning in Uncommon Traveller
1866 – Metropolitan Board of Health created
1867 – John Muir begins his thousand mile walk to the gulf
1869 – Transcontinental railroad finished
1869 – John Wesley Powell leads expedition down Colorado River
1870 – Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil Company
1872 – American Public Health Association formed
1872 – Yellowstone National Park Act
1872 – General Mining Act of 1872
1873 – First of ‘killer fogs’ in London
1874 – Decimation of buffalo begins
1878 – Factories and Workshops Act
1879 – US Geological Survey formed
1882 – Tuberculosis and cholera isolated
1882 – First hydroelectric plant
1885 – US Biological Survey created
1886 – First Audubon Society formed
1889 – Damn collapse in Johnstown, PA
Early Progressive
1890 – End of American Frontier
1890 – Sequoia, Yosemete and General Grant National Parks established
1891 – Forest Reserve Act
1892 – Sierra Club founded
1894 – The cleaning of New York
1896 – George Washington Carver joins Tuskegee Institute
1896 – Langley’s writes The New Astronomy
1899 – Rivers and Harbors Act
1890 – Lacey Act
A New Century
1901 – John Muir writes Our National Parks
1902 – Bureau of Reclamation established
1902 – Roosevelt’s “Teddy” Bear incident
1904 – Lead poisoning and paint connection established
1904 – Sinclair’s The Jungle published
1905 – National Audubon Society organized
1905 – Bureau of Forestry becomes the US Forest Service
1906 – Federal Food and Drug Act
1906 – Antiquities Act
1907 – USDA Animal Health and Plant Health Inspection Service founded
Late Progressive
1907 – Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co. and Ducktown Sulphur, Copper and Iron Co
1910 – US Bureau of Mines Creates
1910 – Insecticide Act
1911 – Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
1913 – US Department of Labor Established
1913 – Hetch Hetchy dam constructed in Yosemite national park
1913 – Migratory Bird Act
1914 – Ludlow massacre
1914 – Last passenger pigeon dies
1916 – National Park Service created
1918 – Trostsky’s “domination of nature by technology” philosophy
Roaring 20s
1920 – US Federal Power Act
1921 – Leaded gasoline discovered
1924 – Oil Pollution Act
1925 – Crash of US Airship Shenandoah
1927 – River and Harbor Act
1928 – St. Francis Dam gives way (important for CA)
Depression Era
1930 – National Institute of Health established
1933 – Civilian Conservation Corp formed
1933 – Dust Bowl begins
1935 – Wilderness Society co-founded
1936 – National Wildlife Federation formed
1937 – Term “greenhouse effect” is coined
WWII and Postwar
1940 – Bald Eagle Preservation Act
1941 – Mono Lake CA Aqueduct diversion
1942 – Rubber shortage
1945 – Corp of Engineers abandons Potomac River dam
1946 – Bureau of Land Management and International Whaling Commission formed
1947 – Texas City disaster
1948 – Leopold write Sand County Almanac
Cold War
1951 – Rachel Carson write The Sea Around Us, Nature Conservancy formed
1953 – Plass present paper on global warming
1955 – Air Pollution Control Act
1956 – Water Pollution Control Act
1957 – Keeling of Scripps Inst. begins recording CO2 levels
Sixties
1961 – World Wildlife Fund founded
1962 – Conservation Conference
1962 – Silent Spring published
1965 – Water Quality Act
1965 – Scenic Hudson Storm King decision
1967 – Environmental Defense Fund established
1967 – Air Quality/Clean Air Act passed
1968 – Tragedy of the Commons article published
1969 – Cuyahoga river bursts into flames
Seventies
1970 – First Earth Day Celebrated
1970 – EPA, NOAA formed, OSHA passed
1971 – US whaling ends
1972 – Federal Water Pollution Control Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, Marine
Mammal Protection Act passed
1972 – Ban on DDT
1973 – Arab oil embargo
1973 – Endangered Species Act passed
1976 – Toxic Substances Act, RCRA, Federal Land Policy Study Act, and Whale
Conservation Act passed
1977 – Soil and Water Conservation Act, Surface Mining and Reclamation Act passed
1978 – National Energy Act, Endangered American Wilderness Act, Antarctic
Conservation Act
1979 – Three Mile Island melt down
Eighties
1980 – Love Canal relocation/Superfund legislation
1981 – PETA founded
1982 – Tellico Dam built in spite of Snail Darter
1985 – Discovery of ozone hole
1986 – Chernobyl explosion
1987 – Montreal Protocol/CFCs banned
1989 – Basil Convention ratified
1989 – Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs aground
Nineties
1991 – War in Kuwait
1991 – Sweden first to impose carbon tax
1992 – Earth Summit
1995 – Wolves return to Yellowstone
1997 – Kyoto Protocol
1999 – Earth’s population reaches 6 billion
21st Century
2001 – G8 summit protests
2001 – 9/11 attacks
2002 – World Summit on Sustainable Development
2005 – Kyoto protocol goes into force without US
2005 – Hurricane Katrina
Timeline Assignment
1. Choose one of the events listed above.
2. On an 8.5” by 11” piece of paper do the following:
a. Write the title of the event
b. Record the date the event occurred
c. Provide a bold illustration of the event
d. Write a short paragraph – include a summary of the event as well as it’s significance/importance to
the environmental movement and/or environmental science.
e. Your name on the back