The Modern Environmental Movement

Wisconsin has played a major and highly visible part in the development of environmental protection in the twentieth century, including a key role in forming the national organizations of the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society and in creating Earth Day in 1970. Although the first protests against pollution, first efforts to conserve natural resources, and first campaigns to save forests all occurred in the late 19th century, the modern environmental movement that emerged after 1950 had different social roots and objectives than the conservation movement that preceded it.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the conservation movement... more...

Original Documents and Other Primary Sources

	Gov. Nelson tries to save unspoiled Wisconsin lands in 1961.
	The U.S. Congress recognizes Earth Day, in 1975.
	Gaylord Nelson seeks to bring the environment into the classroom, 1969
	An overview of Earth Day, 1970
	The state of Wisconsin's environment, 1934.
	A "Blitz Fog" pesticide dispenser, 1965
	John Nolen drafts a plan for a state park system in 1909
	State parks and protected lands expand in the 1960s.
	A guide to teaching conservation in 1949
	Smokey Bear visits Milwaukee in 1954
	Photographs of Gaylord Nelson
	Selections from Gaylord Nelson's Earth Day files, 1970
	Gaylord Nelson's early environmental speeches, 1962-1971
	Gaylord Nelson proposes an environmental agenda to Congress, 1970

Primary Sources Available Elsewhere

	The politics behind Earth Day, 1969-1974.
	Gaylord Nelson recalls Earth Day 1970, ten years later.
	Aldo Leopold evaluates compulsory conservation education, 1937
	Aldo Leopold analyses a 19th-century hunter's logbook.
	Wisconsin Blue Books
	The life and writings of wilderness advocate Sigurd F. Olson
	Selections from the manuscripts of Aldo Leopold, 1903-1948

Related Links