Stewards of tomorrow: the Student Conservation Association, youth service, and postwar American environmentalism, 1953-1975
Date
2011
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The early history of the Student Conservation Association (SCA), a youth conservation work-service program founded in 1957, provides a fruitful new perspective on postwar American environmentalism. Even as new environmental concerns and constituencies arose in the 1960s and 1970s, an older concern with conserving natural resources gained new currency with the SCA's arrival. Using newly available SCA archival materials, government documents and reports, contemporary newspaper accounts, oral histories, and internal surveys, this dissertation argues that the search for "stewards of tomorrow" marshaled the power of traditionally privileged groups to protect the nation's public lands, a mission which simultaneously limited and expanded opportunities for youth. The SCA's early history demonstrates that this small organization embodied the complexity of many contemporary social dynamics and intellectual trends. Successive chapters analyze the SCA's emergence in the mid-1950s, its administrative and financial history, recruitment of volunteers and volunteers' experiences in national parks, contrasting philosophies of service formulated by the SCA and the national Youth Conservation Corps, and the impact of conservation work on youthful volunteers. Indelibly tied to the life of its founder, the organization carried on the traditions of women's voluntary service and ideas about the restorative power of nature while devising original programming that enabled young volunteers, especially young women, to acquire important occupational and educational experiences. In the 1950s and 1960s, the SCA's directors and supporters challenged generally accepted understandings of women's work, pushing for greater gender equity by obtaining opportunities for talented, ambitious young women interested in conservation and natural science. Working with the Garden Club of America, the SCA created a program that combined conservation education, experiential learning, and occupational exploration. The role of clubwomen, students, and philanthropists in the rise of modern environmentalism has often been overlooked, and the actions of these individuals complicate the historical narrative by demonstrating that tradition and innovation often went hand in hand. Many 1950s conservationists wished to preserve natural resources, and sought to enlist volunteers who would not only help relieve the burdens placed on the nation's resources, but who would also replace them as the next generation of conservation leaders. This dissertation finds that the SCA, an organization rooted in the traditions of an elite women's club and the assumptions of the privileged classes that supported it, subscribed to an interpretation of "service" that valued unpaid volunteer labor over paid conservation work. This interpretation, which assumed that any monetary value placed on work automatically corrupted such service, stemmed from the voluntary tradition on which the SCA was built. Voluntary service served as a way for the SCA to distinguish itself from other similar programs, such as the Youth Conservation Corps, but it also highlighted the inherently exclusive ideas about who could participate and what constituted service to the nation. Despite such an emphasis on the importance of volunteer work, SCA participants themselves did not find that characteristic particularly important for their overall experience, focusing instead on their heightened awareness about the environment and conservation issues.