Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Conservationism
As a Rough Rider in the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt’s attention to nature and love of animals were much in evidence, characteristics that would later help form his strong conservationist platform as president
ON JUNE 3, 1898, 39 days into the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders arrived in Florida by train, assigned to the U.S. transport Yucatan. But the departure date from Tampa Bay for Cuba kept changing. Read more >>
The naturalist ALDO LEOPOLD not only gave the wilderness idea its most persuasive articulation; he offered a way of thinking that turned the entire history of land use on its head
The trouble began at midmorning on Wednesday, April 21, 1948, when a neighboring farm’s trash fire got out of control. Read more >>
American attitudes toward them have taken a 180-degree turn over the last century—and so have the battles they provoke
ORGANIZED AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM IS HARDLY older than this century, and most of its current concerns are younger still. Some of the resources it now tries to protect, in fact, were among its original targets. Read more >>
THE PICTURE IS MORE HEARTENING THAN ALL THE LITTLE ONES
The Cuyahoga River died for our sins . In 1796 the Cuyahoga, which promised easy transportation into the wilderness of the Ohio country from Lake Erie, prompted the city of Cleveland into existence. Read more >>
Ninety years ago a highborn zealot named Gifford Pinchot knew more about woodlands than any man in America. What he did about them changed the country we live in and helped define environmentalism.
Like most public officials, Gov. Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania could not answer all his mail personally. Much of it had to be left to aides, but not all of these realized the character of their boss. Read more >>
Every town you pass through has felt the impact of the modern historic-preservation movement. Now a founder of that movement discusses what is real and what is fake in preservation efforts.
Twenty years ago nobody thought much about saving old buildings. The phrase urban renewal had an optimistic, forward-looking sound to it, and entire urban centers were razed with little thought of what might be lost in the process. Read more >>
SAVING FACE
The person in the cherry picker is giving an odd sort of truth to Walter Pater’s definition of art: “All art does but consist in the removal of surplusage. Read more >>
The quietly compelling legend of America’s gentlest pioneer
“There is in the western country a very extraordinary missionary of the New Jerusalem. A man has appeared who seems to be almost independent of corporal wants and sufferings. Read more >>
The Garden Club of America-once the diversion of leisured ladies—is now a vigorous environmental league
The young should be trained to love flowers and take care of the garden shrubberies. Such knowledge and taste are greatly needed in our land,” counseled Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1858. Read more >>
The Passion of Percy Baxter—
A penny pincher who gave away millions, a governor who ordered the state’s flags lowered to half-mast upon his dog’s death, a lifelong bachelor who was the attentive escort of beautiful women, an animal lover who sent stray dogs to prison as companions for the inmates—Percival Read more >>
Our Frontier Heritage of Waste
Historians of the future, looking back on the twilight years of the twentieth century, may designate the mid-1970’s as worthy of that supreme accolade accorded only the most significant dates in history: to serve as a dividing point between chapters in their textbooks. Read more >>
These hardy Texas beasts with “too much legs, horns, and speed” had long since been replaced by stodgier breeds. Now they were facing extinction…
If you are someone who thought the Texas longhorn was as dead as the passenger pigeon, here is a bit of news. Read more >>
CONSERVATION
The lake was liberated from glacial ice ten thousand years before Babylon was built. Thus, it had more than fifteen thousand years in which to transform from an almost sterile, ice-gouged river valley into fecund, prosperous Lake Erie. Read more >>
The Rough Rider rode roughshod over writers who took liberties with Mother Nature’s children
It was an early spring evening in 1907. Theodore Roosevelt and Edward B. Read more >>
Everyone knows a little about the rise and fall of DDT—how it was once hailed as a great boon to mankind; how useful it was in field and garden, house and yard; and how at last to our dismay it was unmasked as a killer, the chemical Al Capone, a threat to our Read more >>
In the name of progress one of New England’s most historic and unusual urban areas is being carved into parking lots
In the year 1807 in the town of Derryfield, New Hampshire, a gentleman by the name of Samuel Blodeet proclaimed: “For as the country increases in population, we must have manufactories, and here at my canal will be a manufacturing town— Read more >>
In the last issue this magazine commenced regular and intensive coverage ot conservation and historic preservation, signifying our deep concern for the widely endangered physical heritage of America. Read more >>
Sir: … The article “Lament for a Lost Eden,” by Eliot Porter [October, 1969], affords an excellent example of what I feared in connection with your publication going “conservationist”… In the last paragraph, the author says: “This is the monument men have built —you and I —not Read more >>
There are places on this earth, in Europe particularly, where conservation is taken to mean the preservation of the notable works of man as well as nature. Read more >>
As the frontier moved westward and wildlife declined, the tireless Audubon drove himself to record its wonders