Literature of the Environmental Age
During the Second World War, two separate events caused significant environmental damage in the coastal Atlantic states of the United States. One series of events was the German submarine attack on United States military liners in the first six months of 1942, called in many accounts “The Turkey Hunt.” The details of this event will be outlined later, but for this portion of the discussion, it should be known that this particular attack released 587,951 gross tons of oil into the Atlantic along with many vital military supplies to the war effort (foot note). On a larger scale, the state of the military convoy system, the disposal of wastes on military sites, and the pollution caused by military vessels that were not attacked was responsible for significant environmental damage. This started to change during the war in July 1942, with improved Air Corps and Coast Guard convoys for shipping in the Atlantic. However, the damage was done and left to be dealt with by local merchants and politicians in places like Wilmington, North Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia.
The most misunderstood and underappreciated cost of World War II for the United States was the damage done to the environment during wartime operations. Three factors led to the absence of environmental concerns from postwar discussions at the local, state, and federal level. The nature of the conservation movement between 1942 and 1962 was more concerned with the conservation of natural resources for usage by an increasing market for oil and lumber. Local and state governments in the target area were much more concerned with issues of civil rights and postwar land development. As well, the veil of Cold War politics stunted the growth of a significant environmental movement until the 1960s. The military culture that placed security and protection above all else was reinforced by World War II and ideological conflict with the Soviet Union.
The military, at odds with conservation and environmental groups for decades, has reckoned recently with the pollution inherent within its nature. Like the growth of environmental reporting, the development of military stewardship projects begs the question of how and why the military has reached the point that it must be held accountable for damage to the environment. The history of the environment movement shows a significant debate over industrial development, which became entwined with military development following the Second World War. An analysis of the literature regarding environment concerns and debate in American history is necessary in order to understand why this contribution to history is important and how the American government, military, and public have reached this point.
This literature will be discussed at length in this paper. However, it seems fair to outline the general trends of environmental literature in order to situate the reader. The early literature concerning the environment was piecemeal in its approach to what problems the environment faced and what solutions should be sought. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854) was concerned not only with the beauty of nature, but the problems of man’s incursion into the wild. It is largely recognized that George Perkins Marsh’ Man and Nature (1864) is the first work that fits into the American environmental genre. These two works were aided by the interest of Western writers in Naturalism in writing in the late 19th and early 20th century and their popularity soared with the growth of the modern environmental movement.
The next stage in environmentalism’s growth was the debate between preservation and conservation. The three major figures in this debate were John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold. Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, was concerned with the destruction of trees in the Sierra Nevada. Pinchot was a major figure in forestry and helped established the United States Forestry Service. Leopold wrote extensively on the topic of morality in development and sought the adoption of a “land ethic” to establish a more enlightened attitude toward the environment.
Environmental concerns of the period between the New Deal and the end of World War II consisted of concerns about conservation, regional planning, and urban development. The book FDR and the Environment, published in 2005, consists of essays regarding President Franklin Roosevelt and his administration’s approach to environmental issues. An essay by Brian Black, “The Complex Environmentalist: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Ethos of New Deal Conservation,” Roosevelt’s conservation roots are explored. A. Dan Tarlock’s “Rediscovering the New Deal’s Environmental Legacy” discusses why the New Deal has not been discussed in environmental terms and why it should be included. Samuel P. Hays has also written histories of the conservation and environmental movements from the Progressive Era to the 1980s. His book Beauty, Health, and Permanence details the history of conservation and pollution from the end of World War II through 1980. Hays’ work is fairly objective, though he certainly shows his concern for environmental politics in the United States for the future.
Lewis Mumford and Benton MacKaye were contemporary authors to the New Deal whom were concerned with regional and urban planning. Mumford’s The Culture of Cities advocated strongly for the garden city, or the development of cities with limited populations around green spaces. Mumford’s work, spanning most of the 20th century, continuously advocated for better development of cities to be more ecologically sound. Benton MacKaye, a colleague of Mumford with the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA), wrote The New Exploration, which urged the growth of conservation resources in New Deal America.
The military and the history of its domestic missions have been well documented. The Army Corps of Engineers Office of History has published histories of all the Army Corps Districts in the United States, detailing their domestic and foreign responsibilities. For the purpose of this thesis, the appropriate districts lie in Wilmington, North Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida. Each of these districts was critical in creating bridges, canals, and water projects on the Atlantic, as well as the construction of military buildings for World War II. The Coast Guard has also received much attention for its role in World War II and coastal defense. Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy’s Compact History of the United States Coast Guard details the increased role of the Coast Guard in national defense and gives a good account of the Coast Guard’s role in the defense against Nazi submarines. The most detailed work on the German submarine campaign in 1942 is Michael Gannon’s Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany’s First U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II. This book explores the psychological and military strategies of the U-Boat campaign of 1942 from both German and American perspectives.
The Early Period of Environmental Writing
Prior to the 1960s and the modern environmental movement, there was a significant amount of work to be done by anyone claiming that industry was tied into the problems of nature. For a good portion of American history, from independence to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, an idea existed that the nation’s resources were abundant enough to use at will. Even with the preservation/conservation debate of the early 20th century, there was an underlying belief by many that this argument was for the distant future. The relative prosperity of the growing middle class, the promotion of the Social Gospel at the end of the 19th century, and the influx of immigrants to a land offering such opportunities created a difficult setting for environmental writers to work.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden was written in 1851 at a point when few in the American public gave thought to the influence of economy and the individual on the environment. Thoreau commented that man was preoccupied far too much with things material, such as acquiring wealth and growing to fame. He was equally concerned with the lack of attention paid to the natural world and with the creation of an artificial world solely of material gain. His work was part of an endeavor to prove that man’s true place as on the land, living on what would be necessary for life and drawing satisfaction from man’s relationship to his natural environment. Thoreau stayed near Walden Pond with a shelter of his own devices and a crop of beans to use for barter. His experiment was to see what life would look like after a year of deprivation from the material world, though at the beginning it was merely for the purpose of “transacting some private business.”
Thoreau’s experience in the wild exposed several statements by the author about man’s connection with nature. His interactions with himself under the guises of a hermit and a poet while out in the pond are interesting moments of solitude and introspection. This held a high value for the author, as it showed some intellectual prowess and was created only from the connection of man to nature and vice versa. The Fitchburg Railroad going through the city nearby tore through the sounds of birds, trees, and the life of nature. The railroad was the ultimate of industrialization and Thoreau realized the coming of a new age where nature could be subdued quickly. In Walden, Thoreau wrote extensively on the types of food grown, kept a meticulous log of items in and out of his possession and left behind a valuable account of one man’s return to nature. This book was both a literary masterpiece and perhaps one of the first books that showed concern with how economy and development affected nature, in this case through one man’s connection with his surroundings.
George Perkins Marsh was a diplomat and a linguist in the 1840s and 1850s before writing his seminal work, Man and Nature. According to Marsh biographer David Lowenthal, this author was an enigmatic figure who looked to anecdotal evidence and unusual examples to prove the thesis of his book. Man and Nature, written in 1864, is a thorough analysis of natural change by artificial and natural causes. Marsh certainly conceded that nature had a major hand in its own erosion and destruction. Wind and rain eroded topsoil and mountainsides, animals did their part in destroying plant life, and the ecological circle was one of vast destructive and regenerative epochs. In general, however, mankind destroyed nature in a swift and unusual manner.
Marsh identified three specific environs that were largely affected by man: forests, sand, and waterways. Agriculture was the major perpetrator of damage to all three, although the rise of railroads and the military played a role. Marsh felt that forests were great equalizers for the American environment, regulating the temperature at surface levels depending on the season and maintaining a balance of flora and fauna in surrounding areas. The beaches along the Atlantic Coast were largely affected by the development of ports and the influence of manipulations in waterways. Irrigation not only affected the beach but also decreased water levels with the diffusion of water inland. Marsh’s worries were with the drastic changes underway in the American environment, though he used the examples of Dutch dikes and forests in Europe to illustrate the influence of industrialization. Marsh debatably is the beginning point for the environmental movement in America; however, the lack of commercial interest in this book along with the lack of significant outlets for such a book, showed that the movement was only a few individuals concerned about the general welfare of nature. Marsh would reappear as an important figure in the conservation/preservation debate.
Land Ethic versus Wise Use: The Beginnings of a Movement
Ideas on the environment started to change at the beginning of the 20th century. The ascendancy of Theodore Roosevelt to the Presidency in 1901 allowed an opening for conservationists and other concerned parties to bring their rudimentary lobby to Washington. Roosevelt, an outdoors man who wrangled cattle and hiked out West, was a pragmatic leader. As President, he sought out individuals of character and intelligence to surround him. One such character, and the epitome of conservationist thought in America at this time, was Gifford Pinchot.
Pinchot, considered America’s first forester and a gifted politician, wrote many books on the topics of conservation and of forestry. One book in particular, Breaking New Ground (1947), discussed how forestry began in the United States and its role in starting conservation. Pinchot and several other students of forestry studied in France at a school for forestry, a concept seldom heard about in America. Their course work involved theoretical studies on land management, experiences in forests surrounding the school, and talks with European foresters. Pinchot spoke with regret in this book that upon his return from Europe, there was no public or privately owned land under the auspices of a forestry management body. The author, along with others of the Progressive movement, took charge of the American forestry movement.
Forestry evolved into a major governmental project, requiring a reevaluation of how resources were used in America. Pinchot traveled throughout the United States overseeing the conversion of the industrial land of forests in America to a standardized and efficient system of land management. Pinchot was never one to say that all forests and lands should be kept off limits; rather, he saw the need for responsibility in maintaining the natural resources of America longer. In this belief, he found an ally in Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt helped pass through Congress the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allowed for the protection of lands that were unique and scientifically valuable. In equal part, Roosevelt established the United States Forestry Service in 1905 and named Pinchot as its director, encouraging land management throughout the country.
An example given by Pinchot of proper forest management was the Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne forest and its management rules. These rules included the preservation of new growth trees by cutting down old growth trees to allow development, the prevention of fires in the forest except when it was helpful for maintenance and the marking of trees in order to determine which could be cut and which should be allowed to stay. These rules were fairly common in the national forest of the United States, but two groups were frustrated by these policies. One group was the industrial giants, who wanted the unfettered access to raw materials that it had up to this point. The other group was the preservationists, whom sought the complete protection of forests and natural resources for aesthetic and moral purposes. John Muir and Aldo Leopold helped lead this movement.
The John Muir collection Nature Writings includes some of Muir’s most brilliant accounts of the Sierra Nevadas and his development into a preservationist. Muir, who would go on to form the Sierra Club and squired Roosevelt around the aforementioned mountain range during his presidency, was concerned specifically with the sequoia trees that were prominent in California. Two short works in particular articulate Muir’s interests and reflect preservationist values. Muir’s travelogue “My First Summer in the Sierra” outlined his trip through the rough terrain of the Sierra, including interactions with his party, a native whom he admired for his devotion to the land, and to nature itself. Muir did a great deal of sketching and outlining of the plants and animals of the Sierra and left behind and interesting account of his trip. His subsequent trips to the mountains and forests would lead to his article in the Sacramento Daily Union on February 5, 1876 entitled “God’s First Temples.”
In this article, Muir berates the lumber and agricultural industries for their behavior toward the sequoias in California. He advocated for a forestry service similar to those that existed in Europe and for the outright protection of the redwoods of California. His indignation went specifically into a bill that made it illegal to burn redwoods more than sixteen feet in diameter. Muir said, “All the young trees may be cut and burned, and all the old ones may be burned but not cut.” Muir’s wish for the forestry service would come true in his lifetime. A balance was struck between conservation and industrial development. Aldo Leopold hoped to make a more convincing case for preservation under the morality of a “land ethic.”
Leopold was an ecology professor at the University of Wisconsin and a former scientist at the United States Forestry Service. A Sand County Almanac is his seminal work, a combination of natural sketches and essays on environmental philosophy. Leopold goes through each month of a year in Wisconsin, observing the sights and sounds of the natural world. He concludes the book by discussing the idea of a “land ethic,” or the inclusion of the environment into the human community. Leopold felt that wilderness had been exposed to modern technology with disastrous results and if it were treated the same as individuals were treated, there would be the opportunity to enjoy nature as one with the human community. Almanacs asked readers to “think like the mountain” and to embrace the world around them. Leopold ended this book with two conclusions: first, that the love for the land by each individual would breed an ethical relationship and second, that the educational system was working against preservation. Leopold, Muir, and Pinchot were each instrumental in laying the groundwork for the environmental movement and would influence thinkers of all stripes on the topic to the present day.
The New Deal, World War II, and the Cold War
The period of 1932 to 1945 is generally considered mostly as the period of the Great Depression, the New Deal programs of Franklin Roosevelt, and World War II. However, it is critical to study this period in order to understand the origin of the environmental movement. FDR and the Environment sheds light on the origins of the modern environmental movement in the conservation programs of the New Deal. Brian Black’s article, “The Complex Environmentalist”, discusses the role of Roosevelt’s Hyde Park experiences in his years in public office. Roosevelt kept meticulous notes on each tree in his forest and instructed the staff on how to deal with soil issues. After Franklin Roosevelt was handicapped by polio, this connection with the environment became even more important. The State Senate and Governor’s Office of New York proved to be testing grounds for Roosevelt’s conservation policies. As a state senator, his signature issue became forest management. After his election as governor, Roosevelt initiated temporary programs for hydroelectricity, rural farming, and forest management that would become national programs during his presidency. The Soil Conservation Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Tennessee Valley Authority were all initiated well before his role as president.
Black’s essay certainly brings to light a side of Franklin Roosevelt few think of and A. Dan Tarlock’s “Rediscovering the New Deal’s Environment Legacy” addresses the empty space in environmental history for the New Deal. Tarlock asserts that the beginnings of the modern environmental movement took root in the New Deal. He also asserts that the perception by historians that Roosevelt’s presidency was a period devoid of conservation progress is too simplistic, referring to this portion of environmental history an “environmental blank slate.” Temporary New Deal programs that were meant for soil conservation, flood control, and electrification spawned an expanded national parks system, clean water laws, and the improvement of drought and flood relief.
Three of Tarlock’s conclusions are pertinent to this study and summarize the “blank slate” argument. First, Roosevelt’s New Deal programs show the importance of an overarching idea in any movement, but especially the environmental movement. Resource stewardship gave a tangible raison d’etre for Americans to support groups like the Civilian Conservation Corps. The second conclusion is one that is not unique to Tarlock’s work but is still important: humans and nature are part of a single system. The floods of the Mississippi River Valley and the droughts of the Great Plains showed the importance of working with the natural system while recognizing the limitations of resource usage. Finally, the New Deal showed that environmental protection, or conservation in the parlance of the 1930s, was a responsibility of the federal government out of necessity. The interstate nature of environmental concerns required the overview of federal leaders in order to ensure efficient protection of natural resources. Black and Tarlock’s essays are only two of the essays in this compilation but their subject matter is most appropriate for this particular study and an important addition to the dialogue of environmental history.
The work of Benton MacKaye is indicative of the rich conservation dialogue that existed during the 1930s and 1940s. MacKaye, whom advised Governor Al Smith of New York and President Franklin Roosevelt on regional planning, sought the creation of communities that integrated natural landscapes and the basic needs of inhabitants. In The New Exploration, MacKaye lays out a philosophy for regional planning that includes an idea for the “highway less town.” With the rise of automobile ownership and the expansion of roadways during and after World War II, MacKaye saw the deterioration of the city as an issue of national concern. The “highway less town” would fulfill four goals: abolishing the motor slum, ensuring distinct communities free of highways, relieving unnecessary congestion in cities and on highways, and insuring the safety of pedestrians. MacKaye found this plan to be so important because he felt that a clean environment was to man what air was to mammals. Humanity felt a connection to the land and, according to MacKaye, it was only natural to live in communities that reflect this connection. The New Exploration, along with similar works by colleagues Lewis Mumford and Van Wyck Brooks, are necessary to understanding the intellectual roots of the postwar environmental movement.
American involvement in World War II disrupted this literature for obvious reasons. New mechanisms and greater federal involvement in conservation of needed war supplies made concerns about regional planning secondary. Even before the United States technically entered the war, efforts were made to prepare the country for potential war efforts. According to the various accounts from the Army Corps of Engineers, the war effort at home truly began with Roosevelt’s November 1941 executive order to transfer military construction responsibilities from the Quartermaster Corps to the Engineers. In all of the Corps districts in question, Air Corps bases and military installation were built in the American Southeast to facilitate convenient access to the Atlantic Ocean. According to Sun, Sand, and Water: A History of the Jacksonville District, US Army Corps of Engineers 1821-1975, the consolidation of construction to the Corps was the first act of unified command in World War II. The Corps district histories prove to be valuable in understanding the infra structural role of engineers at home and abroad.
Oil resources were also vital to the American effort in World War II and the Petroleum Administration for War (PAW) was given the task of overseeing such resources. In May 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and his staff created PAW to better facilitate government and industry cooperation over the use of oil and petroleum products. Though this was done before America’ official involvement in the war, Roosevelt and industrial leaders certainly saw America’s tacit involvement with Great Britain as proof of the need for cooperation. According to A History of the Petroleum Administration for War 1941-1945, World War II “was a war, beginning to end, of oil” The numbers cited in this book lend proof to this assertion. With seven billion barrels of oil used during the period from 1941-1945 in the entirety of the war, six billion barrels of this oil came from the United States and this American total was one fifth of the total oil usage in the country since 1859. The PAW acted in several ways to improve wartime petroleum usage. The PAW oversaw the increase in the American tanker fleet by three times the number from 1941, mobilized 75,000 tanker cars to carry oil to the East Coast, and adapted over 17,000 miles of pipeline to suit the needs of wartime America. This history of the PAW, ending with an executive order terminating PAW in May 1946, shows the massive structure necessary during the war to solve the problem of oil shortages and natural resource management.
The need for oil on the East Coast was caused largely by the German submarine campaign of 1942, which sought the disruption of Lend-Lease activities between the United States and Great Britain. Two accounts of this campaign are The Compact History of the United States Coast Guard and Michael Gannon’s Operation Drumbeat. The first account, that from the Coast Guard perspective in fighting the Nazi threat, provides discussion of two important aspects of American coastal defense. In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt and the War Department asked the Coast Guard and all ports to monitor all ship behavior, both domestic and foreign, within American harbors. This concern was due largely to the World War I unrestricted submarine warfare waged by the Germans and the aggressive behavior of the Nazis on the European continent. Another aspect, one which was a major concern of the United States military during World War II, was the state of the naval fleet in 1942. As Gannon addresses at length, the amount of naval ships that were in working condition and could be left to patrol the Atlantic Coast were limited. After several months of German attacks, the Coast Guard and Naval commands decided to accept the offer of thousands of private ship owners whom wanted to protect the Atlantic Coast from German ships. The Coast Guard Auxiliary was initiated in July 1942 and employed the services of 7,000 boats with limited weaponry to patrol 15 miles of Atlantic waters at a time. These two efforts by the Coast Guard were vital to the American war effort, though even in The Compact History, there is admission that the policy came far too late into the war effort.
Michael Gannon’s Operation Drumbeat explores the German submarine attack on the Atlantic Coast from the perspective of one boat, U-123. The Nazi perspective on the American submarine attack was both psychological and practical; not only did their submarines effectively stop commerce along the East Coast for six months, it also brought the war to the American homefront in a very real sense. The most germane portions of this book to this analysis, however, deal with the perceived ineptitude of the American government in responding to the German threat. Rear Admiral Adolphus Andrews, whom commanded the North Atlantic defensive fleet, was astounded by the lack of vessels available for tanker convoys and expressed his concerns throughout the war to the Navy command. President Roosevelt’s office attempted counter psychological means toward the Germans by not revealing any details to the press, claiming privacy was one weapon in the war against the Nazis.
However, Gannon does the job of exposing contemporary criticisms to this Navy policy, including a New York Times article titled “Navy Hides its Blows,” which reports the fact that despite the rhetoric of both sides in the war, the Germans were besting the United States on the East Coast shipping lanes. Gannon also exposes the fact that as early as June 1941, civilian ship owners had expressed their willingness to patrol the Atlantic for German submarines. The Navy and the federal government vacillated on this issue, claiming the amateur nature of the captains and the incapatibility of the vessels with Naval regulations. Only with public pressure and the harsh reality of failure on the East Coast did the United States employ these vessels in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Gannon concludes this particular discussion by stating that the convoy system, employed May 15, 1942, worked in stopping the submarine attacks but would have been more effective if begun in January 1942. Operation Drumbeat brings to light the oft-forgotten German perspective in World War II, as well as a fair analysis of American ineptitude in coastal defense.
The period following World War II up until the 1960s is well covered by environmental historian Samuel Hays’ Beauty, Health, and Permanence, the second half of his environmental history collection. This book, looking at the roots of modern environmentalism and its existence within today’s political dialogue, portrays at length the period of 1945 to 1962 as one of change throughout the country. Of course, this change included an evolution of the conservation movement into a movement for environmental protection. The purpose of conservation was to create a more efficient development of natural resources for the use of government, science, and industry. However, with the growth in development following the Second World War and the rise in recreational use of public land, the American public noticed changes in the environment. Initially, the public concern over the environment was with the effects of atomic testing on nature. However, industrial discharges into lakes and rivers aroused the interest of private citizens and groups concerned over water quality and aquatic life were formed in the 1950s.
Hays states that the two most important means of attaching practical concern to the average person was the increase in recreation and the rise of color photography in the media. The increase in national park attendance, fishing, and hunting after 1945 created a connection of the average American to the land around them and this connection ensured action by concerned citizens when the environment was at stake. The color photography of periodicals throughout the United States brought vivid images of mountain ranges, forests, and rivers to millions throughout the country. These virtual and actual connections to nature, according to Hays, continue to this day and drive the growth in environmental activism towards the end of the 20th century.
It is widely recognized by environmental and literary historians that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) was the clarion call to all environmentalists to unite. Unlike the works previously discussed here, Carson’ book identified very specific sources of environmental damage and questioned the technology used by industry and the military with a ferocity unseen to this point. Carson identifies most specifically the poison DDT as a source of systemic damage to plants and animals, including humans. DDT, among other synthetic chemicals, was used by the military during World War II. In this case, DDT was found to be used as a delicing agent for soldiers in Italy and North Africa starting in 1943. This chemical agent was also used by industry and agriculture as a pesticide when demobilization started to take place. Carson analyzes the effects of DDT on rivers, flowerbeds, and in wildlife affected by synthetic chemicals. Carson’s expose on the negative effects of synthetic chemicals raised the hackles of many in industry but also raised awareness between the public and other scientists about problems with the environment.
Conclusion
The environmental movement has become entwined with the greatest forces behind America’s growth over the last two centuries. The early movement focused on agriculture and the impending industrial revolution in the United States, speaking to problems of soil and water pollution, along with the preoccupations of man with taking from nature and not observing its majesty. The modern movement turned its focus toward the manifestations of the industrial revolution. Mass production and technology produced dangerous toxins for our ecological system. They also helped produce overpopulation, production problems with food, and an imbalance between developed and developing worlds.
These two portions of the environmental movement, by and large, were met with two unique responses. The early movement really did not receive much attention from the government until Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency began in 1901. Conservation became paramount to Roosevelt’s governing policy and he was seen as a friend to conservationists. The second part of the movement built steam during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and was left as an undercurrent to the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 called to action all of those worried about toxins in the environment and began the modern environmental movement. The above analysis indicates that work on studying environmental concerns during this period is in its infancy and this thesis will be a part of the overall discussion of post-World War II environmental politics.
