1832 - Artist George Catlin proposes a “nation’s park” after visiting the West and observing Native American tribal cultures.

1836 - Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Nature” is published, articulating his belief that God’s work is visible through nature.

1847 - George Perkins Marsh delivers a speech to the Rutland County Agricultural Society, calling farmers’ attention to the effect of human activity on the land. Many of the ideas expressed in the speech would become the philosophical foundation for the conservation movement.

1848 - Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York. The early conservation movement had roots in the intense intellectual ferment of this period, which also spurred action for women’s suffrage and abolitionism.

1849 - The U.S. Department of the Interior is established.

1851 - Henry David Thoreau, writer, poet, and transcendentalist, delivers a lecture to the Concord Lyceum, in which he says, “In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World.”

1854 - Thoreau publishes Walden, an autobiographical account of his experiment in solitary living, which gave him the freedom to adapt his living to the natural world around him.

1858 - Mt. Vernon Ladies Association acquires 200 acres of George Washington’s estate, one of the first acts of private historic preservation in the United States. Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux win the competition for the landscaping of Central Park in New York City, called Greensward.

1863 - Central Park in New York City is completed. The park is a milestone in the development of the American parks movement.

1864 - Yosemite becomes a California state park by an Act of Congress. George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature is published.

1866 - German biologist Ernst Haeckel firsts coins the term ecology.

1872 - Inspired by William Henry Jackson’s photographs and Thomas Moran’s paintings, Congress sets aside Yellowstone as the nation’s — and the world’s — first national park. Tree-Planting Day is first observed in Nebraska. Soon known as Arbor Day, this tradition is widely observed across the United States, particularly in schools.

1873 - Forest and Stream magazine (currently known as Field & Stream) is founded; it will become the premiere sportsmen’s publication and a forum for conservation advocacy.

1875 - The American Forestry Association is founded. Congress passes an act prohibiting the unauthorized cutting of trees on government property.

1876 - John Muir publishes God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?

1885 - New York state creates large forest preserves in the Adirondack and Catskill mountains, and opens Niagara Falls State Reservation, the first state park in the eastern United States.

1887 - Theodore Roosevelt helps found the Boone and Crockett Club for wealthy big game hunters and conservation.

1890 - Congress passes legislation that establishes Sequoia National Park and, less than a week later, Yosemite and General Grant national parks, in California.

1890s - Influenced by ideas and practices introduced from Germany, the forestry movement in the United States begins to promote scientific and “efficient” forest management.

1891 - Congress passes the Forest Reserve Act, granting the president the power to establish forest reserves.  ....read more