The National Wilderness Preservation System Act of 1964

1. The National Wilderness Preservation System Act of 1964 An Act to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes. In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservations and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose, there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as “wilderness areas,” and these shall be administered in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character, and for the gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness …

2. What is wilderness?

3. A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of live are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land remaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which… (1) Generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and … (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

4. Pastoral Harmony

7. Jefferson’s Pastoral Republic of Yeoman Farmers

9. John Wesley Powell Chief of the U.S. Geological Survey

10. George Perkins Marsh, 1801 - 1882

12. Naturalizing the Nation; Nationalizing Nature

13. The Sublime Spectacle

14. The Picturesque Scene

16. John Muir, 1838 - 1914

17. Tourist Landscapes New York City Dudes Frederick Remington & Adirondack Guides

20. Adirondack Park Tourist Hotel, circa 1885

22. The Rise of the Scenic Tourist Industry, 1870 -1914 Emergence of an affluent, upper class and upper middle class Emergence of a middle class Romantic aesthetic based on feeling, imagination, authenticity, and nostalgia. Improvements in transportation and railway/hotel tourist connections. Importance of landscape scenery as an element of taste and its conversion into a saleable commodity through marketing. Emergence of a “tourist sensibility” in which picturesque or sublime landscapes and waterscapes become objects of mass cultural consumption. Developing links between the landscape, nation, nationalism, and national history, especially the myth of the frontier. Deepening fascination with aboriginal peoples and “the primitive,” both as standards against which to measure the progress of Western Civilization, and as ideals of freedom, authenticity, and masculinity.

23. The Urban Industrial Landscape

24. Crowding

25. Crime

26. Squalor and Poverty

27. Federick Law Olmsted, 1822-1903

28. Central Park, 1948

29. Central Park, 1890 F. L. Olmsted, circa 1890

34. A Landscape Reclaimed The Progressive Conservation Vision And the Birth of Scientific Forestry

35. George W. Vanderbilt

36. Biltmore

37. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.

39. “Here was my chance. Biltmore could be made to prove what America did not yet understand, that trees could be cut and the forest preserved at one and the same time” Gifford Pinchot Gifford Pinchot The First Forester of the Biltmore Estate 1892 -1895

40. Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck

45. The Biltmore Forestry School

46. PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATION Government Ownership & Management of Public Lands Scientific Movement Elite Professionalism Gospel of Efficiency Favored Large-Scale Business Corporations Opposed Preservation of Wildlands Advocated for a Large-scale Administrative State

47. Delbert: A miracle, a miracle! • Clooney: Don’t be ignorant, Delbert. I told you they was flooding this valley. • Pete: No! That ain’t it. We prayed to God, and he pitied us. • Clooney: Well, it never fails. Once again you two hayseeds are showing how much you want for intellect. There is a perfectly scientific explanation for what just happened. • Pete: I hate to tell you that’s not the thing you said back at the gallows. • Clooney: Well, human beings cast about in a moment of stress, … no … the fact is that they’re flooding this valley so they can hydroelectric up the whole durn state. Yes Sir, South’s going to change. Everything’s goin’ to be put on electricity and run on a paying basis. Out with the old spiritual mumbo-jumbo, the superstitions, and the backwoods ways. We’re going to see a BRAVE NEW WORLD where they run everyone a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes sir, a veritable AGE OF REASON, like the one they had in France. Not a moment too soon … not a moment too soon …

49. Norris Dam, Clinch River