Environment

The rapid growth of mass production, intensive agricultural production, and rapid urbanization that took place between 1900 and 1930 had a profound and frequently harmful impact on the natural environment in the United States. In a relatively short period of time, the nation underwent a fundamental transformation from a rural population that derived its livelihood from agricultural production to one that was predominantly urban and industrial. Across the country, millions of people moved from farms to urban areas in search of better-paying jobs and more affluent lifestyles. The population in industrial boomtowns such as Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles skyrocketed during this period. In 1900 the nation’s urban population was 30.2 million, or 39.6 percent of the nation’s total population. By 1930 the number of urban residents had more than doubled to 69.1 million, which represented 56.1 percent of the population.

The extraction of raw materials and the waste generated by industrial expansion further resulted in widespread pollution. Lax or nonexistent regulation allowed corporations to dump industrial waste into rivers, streams, ponds, and empty fields, where it subsequently polluted local habitats and worked its way into the water supply, affecting the entire food chain. Similarly, the extraction of minerals and raw materials from mines resulted in substantial runoff of concentrated waste that was often highly toxic. In addition, the mines typically resulted in widespread deforestation and scarred the local environment.

The growth in urbanization also required greater agricultural production. Farmers responded to growing urban and worldwide demands for food by adopting intensive crop cultivation, which included the use of mechanized farm machinery and equipment. As a result, there was a rapid increase in the production of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, pork, cattle, and chicken. For example, wheat production increased from 599 million bushels of wheat in 1900 to 914 million bushels of wheat a year by 1929. As agricultural production increased, crop prices declined. Farmers responded by continually searching for ways to increase production and a vicious cycle ensued, all of which put a tremendous strain on the natural environment.

As industrial development and urbanization increased, there was growing concern about the impact modern industrial society was having on the environment and the nation’s natural resources. A small but vocal group of naturalists, artists, and outdoorsmen directed their attention to the ways in which natural resources were being depleted. They formed the core of an emerging conservation movement. At the same time, an even smaller group of environmentalists began calling for the complete preservation of wilderness areas.

Concern about the conservation of natural resources dates back as early as the 1830s and 1840s and the tran-scendentalist writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They, along with later naturalists John Muir, John James Audubon, and George Perkins Marsh, warned that the nation’s natural heritage was being unnecessarily squandered. The conservation movement emerged in earnest when wealthy landowners began to consolidate and exploit western land and water rights. Many viewed the lush forests and rugged beauty of the West as a national treasure and feared that unless something was done, the West would be stripped of its abundant resources.

John Muir, a world-renowned botanist, was the most influential of the early conservationists and used his influence to lobby for the creation of Yellowstone National Park (1872) and Yosemite National Park (1890). In 1892 he founded the Sierra Club, which today remains the nation’s most important conservation organization. From the outset, the conservationist ranks were extremely diverse. They included sportsmen and hunters like Theodore Roosevelt, naturalists such as Muir and Audubon, scientists, and land use proponents, such as Gieeord Pinchot. By 1900 two distinct camps had emerged—conservationists and the preservationists. The conservation camp, led by Secretary of the Interior Gifford Pinchot, emphasized the rational and efficient use of resources in order to conserve them for future economic expansion. Preservationists, led by Muir and others, while not opposed to the efficient use of resources, argued that some regions, because of their intrinsic aesthetic beauty, ought to be preserved and unspoiled by human use. Both Muir and Pinchot vied for the ear of Roosevelt and attempted to influence federal policy. Muir urged Roosevelt to establish more federal wilderness areas, even if it meant that some resources would be permanently off limits to development, while Pinchot insisted only that resources be utilized efficiently. Permanently preserving natural resources, Pinchot argued, would curtail the nation’s growth and development.

The conflict between Muir and Pinchot and between preservationists and conservationists came to a head in 1912 with the construction of the Hetch Hetchy dam on the west side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. When California public utilities introduced a plan to dam and flood the Hetch Hetchy valley, Muir and other preservationists

Lumberjacks atop a felled Humboldt sequoia tree in California, ca. 1905 (Library of Congress)

Urged Roosevelt to block the dams construction. The dam, which would provide fresh water to residents of San Francisco, was precisely the type of efficient use of resources called for by Pinchot and other conservationists. For Muir and the preservationists, the damage caused by the flooding of the scenic Hetch Hetchy valley would be catastrophic and far outweighed any short-term economic benefit the dam might bring. Of the proposed dam Muir stated, “These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have perfect contempt for Nature. Instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the Mountains, they lift them to the Almighty Dollar.” Conversely, Pinchot concluded, “I am fully persuaded that by substituting a lake for the present swampy floor of the valley, the injury is altogether unimportant compared to the benefits to be derived from its uses as a reservoir.” Pinchot, the conservationists, and those favoring economic development persuaded Roosevelt that the dam’s utility far outweighed the damage to

The valley, and the dam was built in 1913. The influence of preservationists dwindled in the aftermath of the Hetch Hetchy debate.

Progressives, investigative reporters, and public and occupational health advocates, such as UPTON Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, and Alice Hamilton, occasionally expressed concerns about the impact of industrial waste produced by slaughterhouses, steel mills, automobile plants, coal mines, tanneries, and chemical plants. Between 1900 and 1930, there were concerted efforts to improve public sanitation and to protect the health of industrial workers and urban residents, but much of this concern was focused on the impact industrial pollution was having on workers and the general public over the short term and not on the environment over the long term. There were few effective efforts on the part of federal, state, or local governments to protect or preserve natural resources and the environment during these decades.

See also AGRICULTURE; CITIES AND URBAN LIEE; MINING INDUSTRY; OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAEETY; PUBLIC HEALTH; STEEL INDUSTRY.

Further reading: John G. Clark, Energy and the Federal Government: Fossil Fuel Policies, 1900-1946 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987); Henry Edward Clep-per, Leaders of American Conservation (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1971); Char Miller and Hal Rothman, eds., Out of the Woods: Essays in Environmental History (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997); Christopher Sellers, Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement (Washington, D. C.: Island Press, 2003).

—Robert Gordon