American Wilderness Preservationism

The American preservationist movement is arguably the oldest and longest running movement in America. Although wilderness was the bane to the existence of early settlers, it quickly became an important cornerstone of American culture, even as its vast expanses began to dwindle and become unreachable to every day Americans. American was carved by hand by hard working frontiersmen out of rough cut untouched forest making wilderness the foundation of American culture. Though historically, the only natural things man had a tolerance for were those that served his needs, good lumber, tame animals with meat milk or wool, and soil easy to plow. But through a drastic shift in public view in around the turn of the 19th century, suddenly America broke thousands of years of western cultural precedent when it declared that untouched wilderness deserved to be preserved and protected.

Wilderness may seem commonplace to people living in rural America, even to those living in the city, however not many other countries can claim to have the same roots as Americans, when other countries portray Americans in popular culture it is often as rugged individualists living off the land and our own ingenuity. Although there is little wilderness left, it is still an important part of our lives.

Were the immediate needs of man the most important or the absolute preservation of parks. The debate waged on for several years with each new development receiving national coverage in the media. The war over Hetch Hetchy finally ended in 1913 with the decision to build the dam and flood the valley. Because of the public outcry, the city of San Francisco was very careful to build the dam in the least impactful way possible, and to this day it remains the only part of Yosemite national park to be industrialized for the benefit of human