Beginning with the establishment of Arkansas Hot Springs as a national reserve, the recognition by Abraham Lincoln of Yosemite Valley as a “National Pleasuring Ground” and telling the stories of Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir and the formation of such organizations as The Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, this program will show how conservation became the cornerstone of the environmental movement and why protection of wildlife and the natural environment remains a cause that unites people from every point of the political spectrum. Topics and themes include: How early western photography by such pioneers as William Henry Jackson, Timothy O’Sullivan and Carleton Watkins influenced public opinion; Conservation triumphs such as the formation of our National Parks System, the Migratory Bird Act of 1913, the reintroduction of Rocky Mountain Grey Wolves to Yellowstone Park, and the saving of species like the California Condor from extinction. Juxtaposed with these triumphs are the conservation setbacks such as the loss of Yosemite’s Hetch Hechy valley, the extinction of species such as the passenger pigeon, and continued habitat loss.

The names that connect the pieces of this history often loom large in the public consciousness and represent a large cross-section of Americans. Lincoln, Roosevelt and Muir are joined by many public figures from Presidents Nixon, Carter, Clinton and Kennedy to the cartoon characters Bambi and Smokey the Bear. It includes the writers Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman and Joseph Wood Krutch; Officials such as Gifford Pinchot; Pioneering ecologist and writer, Aldo Leopold; Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes; Early conservationists William T. Hornaday, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and J.N. Darling; Photographers such as Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, Darius Kinsey and Robert Glen Ketchum; Members of the business community such as Teddy Roosevelt IV, David Packard, Laurance Rockefeller, and Ted Turner; Activists Winona Laduke, David “Gypsy” Chain, and Julia Butterfly Hill; scientists Edward O. Wilson, Dian Fossey, and Lynn Margulis among many others.