Sierra Club. The Sierra Club of
California was founded by
San Francisco Bay area businessmen and university professors in 1892, “To explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; to publish authentic information concerning them; [and to enlist the support and cooperation of the people and the government in preserving the forests and other natural features of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.” Under the founding president John
Muir, it acted as a protective association for
Yosemite National Park during the controversy over a reservoir proposed in Hetch Hetchy Valley.
Expanding its mission nationwide, the club grew meteorically after
World War II. Its first paid executive director, David Brower, enlisted a large membership, engaged in national campaigns against hydroelectric dams in Dinosaur National Monument and the
Grand Canyon, lobbied for the Wilderness Act (1964), and promoted national parks in the North Cascades (1968) and California's redwood groves (1968). Publishing, lobbying, and grassroots political activities made the Sierra Club the most powerful environmental organization in the United States in the years preceding the first Earth Day (22 April 1970).
By the end of the twentieth century, with some 580,000 members and an annual budget of $52 million, the San Francisco–based Sierra Club once again enlarged its mission, now launching a global effort to “protect the wild places of the earth; to practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems, and resources; [and to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.”
See also
Conservation Movement;
Environmentalism;
National Park System.
Bibliography
Michael P. Cohen , The History of the Sierra Club: 1892–1970, 1988.
Michael P. Cohen
