The Great Expansion Of The 20th Century Essay

John Muir was a muckraker who protested against the expansion of people and animals that would ruin our soon to be national parks. Muir was a man that loved to explore natural formations in nature and traveled around the world to see as much natural land as possible. As he traveled around the world, he found out that California was his place to live. In California, his favorite places to explore and watch were the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Yosemite. As more and more settlers moved West, the land that Muir loved was soon to be destroyed by herds of animals and people looking for a place to build their homes. Muir wrote most of his 300 articles and 10 major books in Oakland, California. In Muir’s writings, he elegantly

Not many people know of the used-to-be 150-mile excursion that the Glen Canyon had to offer. Not many people know how to sail a raft down a river for a week. Not many people know how to interact with nature and the animals that come with it. We seem to come from a world that is dependent on time and consumed in money. Edward Abbey is what you would call an extreme environmentalist. He talks about how it was an environmental disaster to place a dam in which to create Lake Powell, a reservoir formed on the border of Utah and Arizona. He is one of the few that have actually seen the way Glen Canyon was before they changed it into a reservoir. Today, that lake is used by over a million

The Progressive Era was a period of social activism and political reform that grew from the 1890s to the 1920s. Social reformers and journalists, like Jane Addams, Jacob Riis, and Ida Tarbell were some of the powerful voices for progressivism. “They concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant.” Many progressive reformers wanted to end corruption in the government, regulate business practices, address health hazards, and improve working conditions. It was also an era of conservationists. Conservationists are people who protect and preserve the environment and wildlife. Throughout the Progressive Era, there were many conservationists who wrote and described nature, but the most well-known figure in conservation was John Muir. John Muir worked to protect Earth’s beauty by traveling and exploring nature, co-founding the Sierra Club, and by influencing others through his writings and by showing some of the most important people how the wildlife was magnificent.

     Not many people know of the used-to-be 150-mile excursion that the Glen Canyon had to offer. Not many people know how to sail a raft down a river for a week. Not many people know how to interact with nature and the animals that come with it. We seem to come from a world that is dependent on time and consumed in money. Edward Abbey is what you would call an extreme environmentalist. He talks about how it was an environmental disaster to place a dam in which to create Lake Powell, a reservoir formed on the border of Utah and Arizona. He is one of the few that have actually seen the way Glen Canyon was before they changed it into a reservoir. Today, that lake is used by over a million people, and is one of

John Muir is arguably the most influential conservationist in American history. He was an active member in the preservation of the American wilderness from the late 1800’s until he passed in 1914. Muir is often referred to as the “Father of the National Parks” because of his efforts in the establishment of several National Parks. One of the biggest flaws of American history textbooks in need of change is the fact that they do not include the conservationists who have preserved the environment so today the same beauty can be see the way that they saw it. John Muir was involved in many American conservation efforts including the co-founding of Yosemite National Park, founding of the Sierra Club, and his overall career as a

After the First World War America was a completely different country. The twenties was a very unusual time period in American History. The twenties were a time of fun and partying. There are many reasons why it was called the Roaring Twenties.

The modern Environment Movement began with the passing of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The act established a National Wilderness System and created 9 millions acres. The main influence and writer of the act Howard Zahniser, who felt that we needed wilderness as it takes us away from technology that gives us perspective of mastering the environment rather than being a part of it (Nash, 2001). With the passing of the act Americans questioned both preservation and conservation. A new culture emerged in America that rejected societal norms and praised independence and freedom. This culture developed in the youth of America and sparked change in preservation growth and the overall outlook of wilderness.

The narrative of America has always been associated with Western Expansion using bounds and leaps starting from the East Coast until the Pacific. The acquisition of Alaska and Hawaii, though not included in the historical literature, signified the expansion of Americans westward maintaining the ideology of the Manifest Destiny. The Western expansion during the nineteenth century was aided by various factors such as purchases, treaties, and wars with the Native Americans. This essay develops the chronological events associated with the Western expansion that took place between 1860 and 1890.

Furthermore the Sierra Club was successfully organized due to the fact that there were so many like-minded individuals interested in environmental preservation. Moreover, a disturbance (the proposed boundary changes), the leadership of John Muir, and numerous like-minded individuals are variables that contributed.

During the 1920s, there was a rise in economy of the United States. The people of the United States and its territories enjoyed a prosperous life, as the economy grew 7 percent per year between 1922 and 1927. In this period, also referred as “Roaring Twenties”, there was high economic growth with increase in the living standards of Americans.

The city of San Francisco proposed building a dam in Hetch Hetchy, a glacier carved valley at the time, to produce a steady water supply. The Valley was in Yosemite National Park and it was protected by the federal government. It was then up to the Congress to decide the survival of the valley. Conservationists believed that the environment should be used in a industrious manner to benefit the people, while the preservationist believed that nature should be preserved and saved from human destruction. Hundred of organizations and individuals submitted petitions to Congress about the valley. Congress eventually passed legislation that allowed the formation of the dam. This defeat helped transform the Sierra Club from a politically naive hiking club into a formidable and politically astute environmental organization (Snell

Environmentalism has always been two sided. Nature versus urban. locals versus national. Frequently, large tracts of public and federal land are bought and developed by industry. Pristine wilderness turned to bustling epicenters of human activity, all in the name of progress and economic growth. This tale of preserving natural wilderness is one that begins with John Muir, an advocate against the taming of Yosemite national park and the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir, while the head of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, insisted on the reservoir to supply the city of San Francisco with water. This timeless epic of conservation or preservation brings us to the Jumbo Valley, a vast expanse of uninhabited, pristine wilderness home to diverse

The 21st century is much like the 1920s in regard to how society acts. In both the 21st century and the 1920s, people aspire to live rich, luxurious lives, disregard the poor, and ignore the laws. In many songs today, artists sing about getting intoxicated, spending money and other forms of immorality. These songs show how inappropriate actions are done because of living lavishly. The morals in this time period are similar to the 1920s in the sense that people act redundantly and disregard the effects of their actions.

On Wednesday, May 18th, I went with a group of people to see Tom Turner talk about his new book, David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement, at Patagonia in San Francisco. Turner talked about the time that he spent with Brower in the 1960s and 1970s while they worked together on the Sierra Club and other organizations that helped protect the environment. Brower was the first executive director of the Sierra Club and served on its board three times. Turner also briefly talked about Brower’s falling out with the Sierra Club, which he stated was a combination of multiple things. The two main problems were disagreements between Brower and the board of the Sierra Club about various problems in the environment and how to handle them,

It is predicted by the year 2050 the world's population will have increased to over 9 billion people. (International...) If this prediction comes true the world will become overpopulated and cause problems like famine, the world already struggles with feeding the amount of people alive today. A second problem is housing, in underdeveloped countries there is already a struggle with giving people places to live, so companies clear land to build houses but that leads to habitat loss and animal loss. The third reason is disease, if a disease was started and spread when the world was overpopulated the disease could eliminate half of the human population.