Green Crusades:

Environmental Conflict in History

By Mark Neuzil, Ph.D., St. Thomas University and Bill Kovarik, Ph.D., Radford University. See updated original source: click here.
Note: Concern for the environment is not a recent phenomena. This timeline is designed to show the many events that occured before1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.
For more information, write to Bill Kovarik at: wkovarik@runet.edu

Ancient civilizations

Dust and wood smoke create a visible pall over large pre-industrial towns and cities. Thermal inversions and dry, windless weather often create what Romans called "heavy heaven." Odors from garbage, sewage and industries such as smelting or tanning also fouls air.
Mohenjo Darro civilization in India, 2500 B.C., had universal sewer system. Some cities, especially in Babylonia and Israel, have strict rules about sanitation. Others, such as Greek and Roman classical cities, use streets for sewers and occasionally build sewer mains.
Roman Senate, 80 A.D., passes law to protect water stored during dry periods for street and sewer cleaning. Aqueducts built because springs and pools polluted.
Hillsides in China and Peru are terraced to prevent soil erosion in agricultural areas.

Middle Ages

1306 -- Edward I forbids coal burning when English Parliament in session.
1300s -- First English game laws written.
1640 -- Izaak Walton writes The Compleat Angler.
1661 -- John Evelyn writes "Fumifugium, or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated" to propose remedies for London's air pollution problem.
1663 -- Paris becomes first European city with extensive sewer system.
1681 -- William Penn requires Pennsylvania settlers to preserve one acre of trees for every five acres cleared.

Industrial Revolution

1739-- Benjamin Franklin and neighbors petition Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. Foul smell, lower property values, disease and interference with fire fighting are cited. Franklin wins symbolic battle but dumping goes on.
1741 -- Foundling Hospital of London established. Other children's hospitals in Germany and France built, showing concern for infant mortality. By 1800, infant mortality in one London hospital dropped from 66 per thousand to 13 per thousand
1748-1762 -- Jared Eliot, clergyman and physician, writes Essays on Field Husbandry in New England, promoting soil conservation.
1750s -- Gin Lane by William Hogarth spurs social reform in England; newspaper editorials help reformers.
1751 -- Gin Acts give magistrates control over licensing pubs in Britain.
1762-1769 -- Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
1775 -- English scientist Percival Pott finds that coal is causing an unusually high incidence of cancer among chimney sweeps.
1767 -- English physician George Baker (with help from Benjamin Franklin) traces notorious "Devonshire colic" to lead poisoning from cider mills built with lead linings.
1777 -- John Howard, sheriff of Bedfordshire, writes State of the Prisons , an early example of "... An aroused public opinion [that] could be employed as a lever to compel reform."
1779 -- Johann Peter Frank (1745-1821), writes A Complete System of Medical Policy in Germany advocating governmental responsibility for clean water, sewage systems, garbage disposal, food inspection and other health measures under an authoritative "medical police."
1789 -- Benjamin Franklin leaves money in a widely publicized codicil to his will to build fresh water pipeline to Philadelphia due to the link between bad water and disease. Within a few years, one quarter of the population of the town dies in a yellow fever epidemic.
1791 -- The New York state assembly closes the hunting season on the heath hen. The species is extinct by the early 1900s.
1799 -- Manhattan Company formed to build water line. Company survives as Chase Manhattan Bank.
1800s -- First modern municipal sewers built in London, but water supply still frequently contaminated.
1803 -- Louisiana Purchase.
1804 -- First Health Inspector in U.S. appointed in New York.
1817-- U.S. Secretary of Navy authorized to reserve lands producing hardwoods for constructing naval ships.
1818 -- Massachusetts bans the hunting of robins and horned larks, both popular food.
1819 -- British Parliamentary committee concerned that steam engines and furnaces "could work in a manner less prejudicial to public health." Although alternatives were found, nothing was done.
1820 -- Reformer and Parliamentarian Jeremy Bentham writes The Constitutional Code, including proposals for reforming London medical assistance system and water, sewer and public works districts. Many find his proposals for social engineering distastefully autocratic.
1823 -- James Fenimore Cooper writes The Pioneers, which contains the idea that humans should "govern the resources of nature by certain principles in order to conserve them."
1827 --; French scientist J.B. Fourier outlines atmospheric process by which earth's temperature is altered, using a hothouse analogy.
1832 -- Arkansas Hot Springs established as a national reservation, setting a precedent for Yellowstone and eventually, a national park system.
1834 -- New York bans the use of batteries (scatter guns the size of cannons) in duck hunting, but ban is repealed the following year.
1835 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson writes the essay Nature.
1837 -- Benjamin McCready writes pioneering essay on occupational medicine and conditions of New York city slums.
1842 -- Edwin Chadwick writes The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. Report is first scientific inquiry, about infectious disease, child mortality and the link to polluted water supplies and lack of sanitation.
1842 -- English engineers lay out sewer system in Hamburg, Germany, and English system of house by house sewer lines adopted elsewhere in Europe.
1843 -- Royal Commission inquiries begin, dreadful working conditions, child labor, public health problems exposed.
1845 -- Massachusetts Sanitary Commission formed; survey of Boston slums shows high infant and maternal mortality rates as well as many communicable diseases. A second report in 1850 confirms findings. In 1869 a the first state board of health is established.
1845 -- Death of Johnny Appleseed, who planted apple trees across Ohio and Indiana for nearly 50 years.
1848 -- Public Health Act is passed by a reluctant Parliament fearful of spread of cholera. National Board of Health and local boards to regulate water supply, sewerage, offensive trades. Smoke abatement becomes a political responsibility of the health department.
1850 -- U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service founded; among the first attempts to regulate technology on behalf of public safety.
1852 -- Mother of the Forest giant sequoia tree chopped down in Calaveras Grove of Big Trees in what would become Yellowstone National Park.
1854 -- Henry David Thoreau writes Walden.
1854 -- John Snow, London doctor, maps spread of cholera in Broad Street neighborhood, traces cases to a contaminated drinking water pump. Snow's epidemiological studies support "contagionist" views, partly supplanting "sanitarian" views about public health.
1855 -- First comprehensive city sewer plan in U.S. in Chicago. By 1905, all U.S. towns with population over 4,000 have city sewers. Baltimore sewer system, begun 1915, last city to build comprehensive system.
1857 -- State of Vermont commissions study on depleted fish populations in Connecticut River. George Perkins Marsh gets the job.
1858 -- The "Great Stink" of sewage in the Thames spurs work of British Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal.
1861 -- Civil War tax imposed on alcohol-based camphene lamp fuel, vastly increasing demand for new fuel from petroleum called "sun fuel" or "kerosene."
1863 -- George Perkins Marsh writes Man and Nature: The Earth as Modified by Human Action, with emphasis on forest preservation and soil and water conservation.
1863 -- Air pollution from British chemical industry spurs feeble Alkali Act, allowing government agents to question industry and suggest improvements; no actual regulations over air pollution until act is revised in 1906.
1864 -- Federal government grants state of California land for Yosemite Valley Park.
1866 -- Founding of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
1867 -- Pennsylvania legislature rejects bill to regulate water pollution, despite heavy industrial pollution in Delaware River.
1869 -- Massachusetts State Board of Health formed. Ellen Swallow Richards, public health crusader, takes thousands of water and food samples for the Board of Health.
1860s - 1880s -- French scientist Louis Pasteur's germ theory of disease revolutionizes concepts of public health, making it possible to isolate and treat specific diseases.
1870 -- First coal mine safety laws passed in Pennsylvania following a fire that suffocated 179 men.
1871 -- U.S. Fish Commission formed to study decline of coastal fisheries.
1872 -- American Public Health Association formed.
1872 -- President Grant signs Yellowstone National Park bill.
1873 -- London fog kills 1,150. Similar incidents in 1880, 1882, 1891 and 1892.
1873 -- Henry Winchester invents the repeating rifle.
1874 -- German graduate student Othmar Zeider discovers chemical formula for DDT.
1875 -- British Publish Health Act consolidates authority to deal with pollution, occupational disease, and other problems.
1876 -- American Forestry Association campaigns to cut timber on government reserves, American Association for the Advancement of Science calls for federal legislation to protect timberlands. • British River Pollution Control Act makes it illegal to dump sewage into a stream.
1877 -- Massachusetts passes the first factory inspection law, with 22 states following over the next 20 years.
1878 -- Iowa enacts first state bag limit law, limiting hunters to 25 prairie chickens and other game birds per day.
1880s -- First U.S. municipal smoke abatement laws aimed at reducing black smoke and ash from factories, railroads and ships. Regulation under local boards of health.
1882 -- Massachusetts passes first pure food laws, inspired by investigations of Ellen Swallow Richards.
1885 -- U.S. Biological Survey created out of concern over depletion of buffalo and passenger pigeon.
1885 -- Bureau of Labor Statistics established in Department of Labor.
1886 -- First Audubon societies formed by George Bird Grinnell.
1886 -- Major water rights court ruling in case of Lux and Miller holdings in California.

The Progressive Era

1890 -- General Federation of Women's Clubs founded; conservation and "ecology" among top priorities.
1890 -- Yosemite National Park formed; surrounds small California state park. Two other California national parks created.
1891 -- Forest protection bill passes Congress. Thirteen million acres are set aside by 1893.
1892 -- Sierra Club founded.
1896 -- George Washington Carver joins Tuskegee Institute, begins research on industrial uses for farm crops. (See 1935, Henry Ford. )
1899 -- Refuse Act prevents certain discharge into streams and places Corps of Engineers in charge of permits and regulation.
1900 -- Lacey Act regulates interstate traffic in wild game, brings importation of birds and mammals under federal control.
1900 -- Wild buffalo population drops to fewer than 40 animals.
1900 -- Automobile is welcomed as bringing relief from pollution. New York City, with 120,000 horses, scrapes up 2.4 million pounds of manure every day.
1903 -- President Theodore Roosevelt creates first national wildlife refuge, on Pelican Island, Florida. In all, by 1909 the Roosevelt administration creates 42 million acres of national forests, 51 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest," including the Grand Canyon.
1905 -- National Audubon Society organized.
1905 -- U.S. Forest Service created.
1906 -- Food and Drug Administration founded.
1906 --Yosemite Valley comes under federal control after 42 years as a state park.
1906 -- 100,000 acres of Alaskan coal land withdrawn from public use; sold by USGS.
1906 -- Tax lifted on alcohol fuel to allow competition with petroleum.
1907 --USDA Animal Health and Plant Health Inspection Service founded.
1907 -- Smoke Prevention Association of America founded in Chicago.
1908 -- White House conference of governors on conservation policy held.
1908 --Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius argues that the greenhouse effect from coal and petroleum use is warming the globe.
1909 -- Glasgow, Scotland, winter inversions and smoke accumulations kill over 1,000. Preparing a report about the incidents, Dr. Harold Antoine Des Voeux coins term "smog" as a contraction for smoke-fog.
1909 -- National Conservation Commission suggests "broad plans... be adopted providing for a system of waterway improvement."
1909 --Charles Van Hise writes The Conservation of Natural Resources.
1909 --U.S.-Canada boundary pollution commission established.
1909 --Louis Glavis blows whistle on Alaskan coal deal.
1909 -- Bureau of Mines founded to promote safety and welfare of miners. Bureau and the Public Health Service begin studies of lung diseases.
1912 -- Bureau of Mines begins first smoke control study.
1912 -- Federal Water and Sanitation Investigation Station established in Cincinnati.
1912 -- National Waterways Commission report recommends waterway improvements.
1912 -- National Audubon Society begins campaign to boycott hat makers using endangered tropical bird feathers.
1913 -- Migratory Bird Act to regulate hunting runs into controversy; spring hunting and marketing of hunted birds prohibited; treaty with Canada in 1918 solidifies regulations. Act also prohibits importation of wild bird feathers for women's fashion into the U.S.
1913 -- William T. Hornaday, head of New York Zoological Society, writes Our Vanishing Wildlife, Its Extermination and Preservation. By 1914, establishes Permanent Wildlife Protection Fund with grants from Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and George Eastman.
1913 -- Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park approved by Congress.
1913 -- Weeks-McLean Act gives Secretary of Agriculture power to regulate waterfowl seasons.
1914 -- Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Mines, Public Health Service begin pollution surveys of streams and harbors. Reports filed by early 1920s show an accumulation of heavy damage from oil dumping, mine runoff, untreated sewage and industrial waste.
1916 -- National Park Service created by Congress.
1917 -- Corps of Engineers removed lock gates in old canal in Virginia's Dismal Swamp, allowing salt water into North Carolina's Currituck Sound, a major waterfowl estuary. After a fight with the Corps of Engineers, environmental activists finally persuade Congress in 1930 to restore the gates and preserve the sound.

Roaring Twenties

1920 -- Mineral Leasing Act opens up rich deposits on federal lands for token rental fees.
1920 -- Water Power Act authorizes federal hydroelectric projects.
1921 -- General Motors researchers discover tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock gasoline additive. Despite warnings about its danger, the new gasoline goes on sale without safety tests within 14 months.
1922 -- National Coast Anti Pollution League formed in New Jersey to stop oil dumping.
1922 -- Amelia Maggia, first "Radium Girl" victim of U.S. Radium Corporation, radiation poisoning, dies.
1923 -- Izaak Walton League founded, fights Mississippi valley dredging project with Washington, D.C., lobbying effort.
1924 -- Oil Pollution Act passed, prohibiting discharge from any vessel within the three-mile limit, except by accident.
1924 -- Five refinery workers die "violently insane" at Standard Oil refinery making tetraethyl lead gasoline additive in grossly unsafe conditions. News surfaces that seven other workers died previously at G.M. and DuPont plants.
1924 -- Teapot Dome oil leasing scandal breaks out.
1925 -- Five more workers die making tetraethyl lead for Ethyl leaded gasoline in a New Jersey DuPont plant. In May, Surgeon General conference on leaded gasoline. But the investigation of alternatives is sidetracked and a hasty report recommends further study.
1926 -- First large scale survey of air pollution in U.S., in Salt Lake City.
1926 -- Surgeon General's committee of experts reluctantly permit Ethyl leaded gasoline back on the fuel market. Recommended further research is never funded. Public Health experts cry foul, but leaded gasoline stays on the market until 1986.
1927 -- River and Harbor Act gives Corps of Engineers task of surveying and planning navigation system for inland waters. Previously federal money had been spent primarily on harbor improvements.
1927 -- Five New Jersey women, dying from radium poisoning, file first lawsuits against U.S. Radium Corp.
1928 -- Radium lawsuits settled out of court.
1928 -- PHS begins checking air pollution in eastern US cities, reporting sunlight cut by 20 to 50 percent in New York city.
1929 -- Over 100 wildlife sanctuaries consolidated under federal protection by Norbeck-Anderson Act.

Depression and World War II era

1930 -- Meuse River Valley killer smog incident, Belgium, three day inversion kills 63, with 6,000 made ill.
1933 -- Civilian Conservation Corps formed; 2,000 camps opened, trees planted, roads, fire towers, buildings and bridges constructed. More than 2.5 million people serve until program ends in 1942. Other federal programs, including the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Soil Conservation Service, begin during FDR presidency.
1935 -- Wilderness Society co-founded by Aldo Leopold and Arthur Carhardt.
1935 -- Henry Ford sponsors conference in Dearborn, Mich. creating National Farm Chemurgic Council, dedicated to industrial use of renewable agricultural resources. George Washington Carver honored as pioneer, but as an African American, he is uncomfortable and insists on standing in the back of the room.
1936 -- National Wildlife Federation formed.
1937 -- Another survey of air pollution in New York shows conditions worsening.
1937 -- Pittman-Robertson Act passes Congress, provides excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition for wildlife projects.
1939 -- St. Louis smog episode spurs serious smoke abatement campaign, switch from soft coal to hard coal and fuel oil.
1941 -- St. Louis adopts first strict smoke control ordinance in U.S.
1941 -- "Action Club" formed to combat pollution from paper mills near Augusta, Maine.
1942 -- Controversy over dam that would inundate Cook Forest, a state park with the last of Pennsylvania's virgin forests.

Post World War II era

1945 -- Corps of Engineers abandons Potomac River Project dam after a storm of controversy and protests from Izaak Walton League, National Parks Association, garden clubs and others.
1945 -- Truman Proclamation on the Continental Shelf clears way for oil drilling offshore.
1947 -- Los Angeles Air Pollution Control District formed; first air pollution control bureau in the nation.
1947 -- Defenders of Wildlife founded.
1948 -- Federal Water Pollution Control Act; beginning of active House and Senate Public Works Committee interest in water pollution.
1948 -- 20 dead, 600 hospitalized in Donora, Pennsylvania smog attack.
1948 -- 600 deaths in London due to killer fog.
1948 -- Aldo Leopold writes A Sand County Almanac.
1949 -- Canadian complaints about Detroit pollution launch PHS study of Detroit-Windsor area under 1909 boundary treaty.
1949 -- First national conference on air pollution sponsored by PHS.
1949 -- Izaak Walton League writes "Crisis Spots in Conservation," identifying specific water projects to be opposed.
1950 -- Poza Rica killer smog incident leaves 22 dead, hundreds hospitalized in Mexico.
1950 -- Truman says government and industry should join forces in a battle against death-dealing smog.
1951 -- The Nature Conservancy formed.
1952 -- Three to four thousand untimely deaths attributed to London "killer fogs."
1952 -- Dingell-Johnson Act, an excise tax on fishing tackle, implemented.
1953 -- New York smog incident kills between 170 and 260 in November.
1954 -- Heavy smog conditions shut down industry and schools in Los Angeles for most of October.
1955 -- Congress passes Air Pollution Research Act.
1955 -- International Air Pollution Congress held in New York City.
1956 -- Congress passes Water Pollution Control Act.
1956 -- Another killer smog in London; 1,000 die.
1956 -- Echo Park dam proposal defeated in Congress.
1956 -- Protesters picket Fermi nuclear power plant near Detroit.
1958 -- First PHS National Conference on Air Pollution.
1959 -- California becomes first to impose automotive emissions standards, requiring "blow-by" valve to recycle crankcase emissions. Automakers combine to fight mandatory use of $7 device, a fight which leads to an anti-trust suit by the U.S. Justice Dept.
1960 -- Schenk Act funds two-year PHS study on air pollution from cars. • Clean Water Act passes Congress.
1961 -- International Clean Air Congress held in London.
1961 -- World Wildlife Fund founded.
1962 -- Another London smog; 750 die.
1962 --Rachel Carson writes Silent Spring.

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