• exploitation of the environment for profit became so extreme people began to question it
  
• division between conservationists (wise use) and preservationists (leave nature untouched)
• conservationists were an important part of the Progressive Era
• by the late 19th century city politics was often corrupt--winner got the spoils
  
• reform movement argued that science could tell us the best way to solve political issues
  
• Progressives focused on rational improvement (even of communities that didn't want to be improved)
• public-opinion-driven politics of the environmental movement of the 1970s
• but what was the transition?
• key to that story is the New Deal

• 1929 stock market crash led to high unemployment, lots of factories shutting down, lots of farmers in trouble (drought)
• Roosevelt is elected promising to do something
• what--primarily government programs that create jobs and help the poor (Social Security)
• starts out very top down, but Roosevelt builds broad public support
  
• the CCC is one of these New Deal activist government programs
  

Landscape as an organizing principle

• The word landscape refers to both the natural features of an area and how they have been modified by humans
• definition "non-human nature altered by human labor" p. 6
• "how nature and culture change in tandem" p. 7

History of transformations of the landscape, using George Washington National Forest as an example

• old growth forest was cut in the 19th century, leaving behind erosion and a forest prone to fires
  
• George Washington National Forest was established in 1917 when the Weeks Act allowed the Forest Service to buy abandoned land in the east and reforest it
• first the CCC did traditional forestry work--thinning the forest and removing dead trees, building roads to allow access for fighting fires
• over time their work increasingly focused on recreation
• building roads and introducing non-native fish to improve the fishing lead to tensions with wilderness advocates

Political transformations

• The CCC helped Roosevelt build a coalition
• but later on it was increasingly criticized on ecological grounds