PRESERVING “WILDERNESS”

Manifest Destiny, God within Country Land and Ownership

Ideals grounded in Manifest Destiny usher the environmental movement into conservation as an action task.

“America’s Best Idea” in reference to environmental stewardship and public ownership in the forms of national parks, forests, and game refuges.

Madison Grant, instrumental in creating the Bronx Zoo, was recognized for something more troubling - his 1916 book “The Passing of the Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History.” This book will go on to be praised by Theodore Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Henry Fairfield Osborn.

Trophy hunting and preservation often went hand in hand for many of the conservationists. While the moose, the mountain goat, and the redwood tree necessitated protection due to their nobility, the elk and the buffalo were preserved to be killed.

The unfortunate connection between nature conservationists and eugenics supporting academics meant that the idea of preservation was also applied to human genetics. Ideas such as fearing “race suicide” (women of Northern European ancestry avoiding bearing children) and halting “physically unhealthy people” from reproducing becomes popular.

John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, led forest preservation to escape lowland life “see the face of God in the high country.” However, the same man that empathized with bears and animals was quick to dehumanize and dismiss indigenous Americans, thus displacing them even more.