Driven wild: how the fight against automobiles launched the modern wilderness movement

Driven wild: how the fight against automobiles launched the modern wilderness movement
ISBN-10
0295982195
ISBN-13
9780295982199
Category
History
Pages
384
Language
English
Published
2002
Publisher
University of Washington Press
Author
Paul Sutter

Description

In its infancy, the movement to protect wilderness areas in the United States was motivated less by perceived threats from industrial and agricultural activities than by concern over the impacts of automobile owners seeking recreational opportunities in wild areas. Countless commercial and government purveyors vigorously promoted the mystique of travel to breathtakingly scenic places, and roads and highways were built to facilitate such travel. By the early 1930s, New Deal public works programs brought these trends to a startling crescendo. The dilemma faced by stewards of the nation's public lands was how to protect the wild qualities of those places while accommodating, and often encouraging, automobile-based tourism. By 1935, the founders of the Wilderness Society had become convinced of the impossibility of doing both.

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