The United States - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 20

Theodore Roosevelt camping. Muir successfully backed the effort to create
the national park and its merger with the California properties. In 1892,
Muir and others formed the Sierra Club “to make the mountains glad.”
He was the club's first president, continuing until his death 22 years later.
In its early days, the club was active politically, promoting Yosemite and
the idea of parks in general, but after Muir's death, it reduced its political
role to concentrate on horseback trips, mountain climbing, and education.
Muir himself did not confine himself to California, traveling to Alaska,
Siberia, Switzerland, China, Egypt, India, and the Amazon.
In 1882 the United States cooperated with 10 other nations in the first
Polar Year. The inspiration had come from Lieutenant Carl Weyprecht
of the Austro-Hungarian navy, who had led an expedition that had win-
tered over in its ship in the Arctic Ocean 8 years before. Eleven nations
established 12 stations in the Arctic and two in the Antarctic. The United
States had one at Point Barrow in Alaska, and another at Lady Franklin
Bay on Ellesmere Island across the strait from Greenland. The stations
took simultaneous readings of temperatures, weather, magnetic force,
sunspots, and so forth.
The Conservation Movement: Theodore Roosevelt developed his love of
nature as a boy, when he collected and stuffed birds and small animals,
and traveled with his family to the Adirondacks, to Germany, and even
to Egypt. As a young man, he often visited the West, buying a ranch in
the Bad Lands of the Dakota Territory. He helped found the Boone and
Crockett Club for outdoor adventure and protection of wildlife and parks.
Other organizations founded at the time include the Audubon Society,
the Izaak Walton League, and the National Parks and Conservation
Association. The popularizing of an appreciation of nature was labeled the
Conservation Movement.
A parallel urban manifestation was the City Beautiful Movement.
Architects designed imposing government and civic buildings with broad
tree-lined avenues and grand parks. The model was the White City con-
structed for the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. In turn, this had
been inspired by the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. All around the country,
magnificent courthouses and city halls were constructed. The purpose of
the movement was to uplift the people. Washington, DC, already a planned
city, was enhanced with designed beautification. Central Park in New York,
Belle Isle Park in Detroit, and the Emerald Necklace of parks in Boston
were created by landscape architects like Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted
himself also devoted his efforts to the western national parks like Yosemite.