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Wilderness Act Resource List (redirected from Subject Guides: Wilderness Act Bibliography)

Page history last edited by Anneliese Warhank 8 years, 2 months ago

 

Chinese Wall [Camping trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness]

PAc 77-17.9

 


 

 

 

Wilderness Act Bibliography

 

This bibliography does not include all relevant resources and should therefore be used only as a starting place for your research. To find additional sources, click on this link to our catalog.

 

Annotated Bibliography of Resources Related to the History of the 1964 Wilderness Act and Wilderness Policy Development Held By The Montana Historical Society

 

By Matthew M. Peek, Lee Metcalf CLIR Project Photograph Archivist

Montana Historical Society

 

            The Montana Historical Society (MHS) Research Center is the home for the papers and photographs of U.S. Senator Lee Metcalf, the federal congressmen most responsible for the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act. As a U.S. Representative in the 1950s, Metcalf proposed and co-sponsored with Montana’s senior U.S. Senator James E. Murray a 1956-1957 national wilderness preservation system bill, the first federal piece of legislation of its kind in United States history. Between 1956 and 1964, Senator Metcalf and Howard Zahniser, executive secretary of The Wilderness Society and author of the 1964 Wilderness Act, worked closely in developing the language of the wilderness bill and drumming up support for the act in Congress. The act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964, at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

 

            In a speech at Carroll College in Helena, Montana, on November 20, 1965, Senator Metcalf, reflecting on the Wilderness Act’s passage, believed that the 1960s would be designated as the “Decade of Conservation.” In marking the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Wilderness Act, the Montana Historical Society has commemorated the event throughout the year of 2014. The books, government documents, oral histories, archival materials, and photographs housed at the Montana Historical Society help to document Senator Metcalf’s work and Montana’s role in the 1964 Wilderness Act and the implementation of the act’s statutes.

 


 

Manuscript Collections

 

MC 172, Lee Metcalf Papers, 1911-1978 

 

Link to finding aid 

 

Lee Metcalf (1911-1978) served as U.S. Congressman from Montana from 1952 to 1961 and as U.S. Senator from 1961 until his death in 1978. His papers contain constituent correspondence, reports and research, committee records, personal materials, campaign materials, and other materials related to his public career from 1936 until his death. Most of Senator Metcalf’s papers consist of correspondence from and to his constituents. Metcalf wrote the great majority of his own constituent correspondence, and much of his responses are the only records apart from newspaper articles of his actual beliefs, stances, and efforts on the Wilderness Act. Constituent correspondence often covered several subject areas, but was only filed under one category. For letters regarding Montanans’ attitudes towards the Wilderness Act, it is best to scan through correspondence from 1956 to 1966 dealing with numerous topics. Of particular interest to the issue of wilderness are the following folders of materials:

 

  • Box 34, Folder 6—Department of Agriculture: Forest Service, General (public works, revegetation and spray control, etc.) (1957-1962) [This folder contains letters related to President John F. Kennedy's conservation policies. One letter from 1961 is from Lawrence F. O’Brien, Special Assistant to President Kennedy, to Senator Metcalf]

  • Box 36, Folder 5—Department of Agriculture: Forest Service, Bob Marshall Wilderness Area (1954-1960) 

  • Box 40, Folder 3—Department of Agriculture: Forest Service, Management (1953-1959) [This folder contains correspondence with Lee Metcalf regarding the U.S. Forest Service and Montana lumber companies' creation and maintenance of logging roads in national forests and national parks

  • Box 42, Folder 8—Department of Agriculture: Forest Service, Wilderness and Recreation Areas (1959-1969) 

  • Box 117, Folder 9—Conservation: General (resolutions, legislation, speeches, etc.) (1961-1969) 

  • Box 117, Folder 10—Conservation: General (speeches, resolutions, etc.) (1953-1961) 

  • Box 118, Folder 1—Conservation: Awards (1954) 

  • Box 118, Folder 2—Conservation: Natural Resources (1953-1959) 

  • Box 121, Folders 4-6—Dams: Echo Park  (1953-1956) [The Echo Park Dam controversy sparked the modern conservation movement, and brought the need for the Wilderness Act to the fore of the public. These folders contain letters from Metcalf to conservation leaders and federal politicians, such as Sen. Arthur Watkins, publisher Alfred Knopf, Joseph W. Penfold, and Howard Zahniser. These folders contain the earliest mentions of Metcalf's important behind-the-scenes role in conservation

  • Box 388, Folder 9—Legislation: Wilderness (1962-1964) 

  • Box 389, Folders 1-3—Legislation: Wilderness (1961-1962) 

  • Box 468, Folder 1—84th Congress, 1st Session (includes H.R. 5306, 5313, 5483, 5854, 5968, H.Res. 197, 343, H.Con.Res. 45, 77, H.J.Res. 189, 353, 402)  (1954-1959) [This folder contains correspondence and other information on Metcalf's House wildlife refuge bill, H.R. 5306. The folder contains a letter to Metcalf regarding this bill and the Echo Park Dam controversy from famed conservationist Arthur Carhart]  

  • Box 479, Folder 9—86th Congress, 1st Session (includes H.R. 5144, 5145, 5424, 5473, 5474, 5631, 5813)  (1957-1960) [This folder contains correspondence from Metcalf with various citizens and officials on Metcalf's bill H.R. 11839, the first ever federal legislation for studying the effects of pesticides and insecticides used to kill insects, weeds, and plant diseases, on wildlife and fish. Included in this folder is a letter from HEW Secretary Marion B. Folsom about the death  of fish in the Yellowstone River due to DDT]

  • Box 486, Folders 1-15—88th Congress, 1st Session (includes S. 1 [and 87th Congress S. 404], 4, 20, 137 [and 87th Congress S.2022; and 86th Congress H.R. 8960], 138, 139 [and 87th Congress S. 1696], 140 [and 86th Congress H.R. 10577 and 87th Congress [S.2098], 141 [and 87th Congress S. 1316], 142 [and 87th Congress S.2660], 152 [and 87th Congress S. 1577], 171, 187, 468)  (1959-1965) [Folder 2 contains information and correspondence related to Senate bill 4, the Wilderness Act. In this folder, there is an undated document by famed Montana conservationist Guy M. Brandborg entitled “The Wilderness Battle As Seen From The Gallery", which he wrote sometime from 1961-1963, observing the debate over the Wilderness Act on the U.S. Senate floor. Brandborg details strategy used by Sen. Lee Metcalf in supporting and debating the bill]

  • Box 487, Folder 1-16—88th Congress, 1st Session (includes S. 468, 521, 523, 524, 527, 537, 543, 572, 626, 666, 747, 859) (1961-1965) [Folder 3 includes information and correspondence for Metcalf's "Save Our Streams" Bill, including the Montana Fish and Game Department's important report Destruction of Natural Fish Habitat Is Ruining Montana’s Fishing Streamswhich led Metcalf to introduce the SOS bill in 1962. Folder 15 contains a 1964 letter from Edward C. Crafts, Director of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation of the Department of the Interior, to Senator Metcalf thanking him and describing Metcalf's behind-the-scenes role in the passage of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1964]

  • Box 595, Folder 10—Conservation (1952-1963) 

  • Box 615, Folder 2—Legislation: Wilderness (1957-1962) [This folder contains the most detailed account of Lee Metcalf's role in introducing one of the earliest versions of the National Wilderness Preservation System Act, known as the Wilderness Bill]

  • Box 623, Folder 2—Water Pollution Control (1961-1964) 

  • Box 623, Folders 4-5—Water Resources, Pollution Control, and Conservation (1954-1960) 

  • Box 624, Folder 5—Wilderness Areas; Wilderness System (1959-1964) 

  • Box 629, Folder 3—Miscellany (includes radio spot ads, party platform, Immunity Bill, and bill eliminating communist influence from trade unions, etc.)  (1954) [This folder contains a radio campaign transcript entitled Conservation #3, dating from the 1950s, which discusses some of Metcalf's views on conservation issues]

  • Box 633, Folder 6—Radio and Television Spot Ads, etc.  (1960) [This folder contains transcripts of radio and television programs/commercials related to Lee Metcalf's 1960 U.S. Senate campaign. A number of the programs discuss conservation and the wilderness bill]

  • Box 636, Folder 14—Miscellany (includes Democratic Central Committee in Montana, conservation issue, etc.) (1965) 

  • Box 658, Folder 1—Speeches (1966) 

  • Box 658, Folder 5—Speeches (1965) 

  • Box 660, Folder 2—Speeches (1963) 

  • Box 660, Folders 4-5—Speeches (1961-1962) 

  • Box 661, Folders 1-2—Speeches (1949-1961) 

  • Box 661, Folder 5—Speeches (undated) 

  • Box 662, Folder 3—Speeches (undated) 

  • Box 664, Folders 1-5—Statements and Testimony (1953-1968)

 

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Oral Histories

 

Charles Haskin McDonald interview, 1970 Jan. 22.

  • Topics include his career as a U.S. Forest Service ranger in Utah, Idaho, and Montana from 1919 to the 1960s; forestry practices; conservation; wilderness areas; the traits of Montana loggers; the Montana Study (1944-1946); the lumberman Lee Bass; and the history of the Stevensville community.

 

Bill L. Hicks interview, 1990 May 2.

  • Topics include his training and work with the Forest Service, particularly in Region One; wilderness area and mineral legislation; other federal policies as they have affected the use of Forest Service lands from the early 1960s through the 1980s; some Forest Service colleagues; and miners he has encountered.

 

Andrew W. Bolle interview, 1990 May 01 

  • Topics include his interest in forest policy and the relationship of that policy to the timber industry in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana; spruce bark-beetle infestations; the development of local clear-cutting practices during the 1950s-1960s; U.S. Senator Lee Metcalf; Dale Burk of the Missoulian; the National Forest Management Act of 1976; the policy of "multiple use" of public lands; the activities of the Champion International and the Burlington Northern corporations; his involvement in the establishment of the Rattlesnake Recreation Area and Wilderness. [The U.S. Forest Service authorized this interview.]

 

John Hossack interview, 1990 May 1.

  • Topics include his experiences as a fire lookout in the Flathead National Forest in Montana (1943-1951); his duties as a dispatcher at the Nine Mile Ranger Station in the Lolo National Forest (1951-1961); his work as a ranger in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area (1962-1964) and in the Kootenai National Forest (1965-1967); his responsibilities as a staff officer in the Clearwater National Forest (1967-1971); his work as a district ranger in the Fernan District of the Coeur d'Alene National Forest (1972-1975); his duties as a deputy supervisor in the Bitterroot National Forest (1976-1979); and his assignment as supervisor of the Clearwater National Forest (1980-1983).

 

Bill Worf interview, 1990 May 1.  

  • Topics include his family; his early life in Reed Point; his early experiences as a forest ranger; legislative issues concerning wilderness areas; the effects of logging and recreation on wilderness; his duties as the Bridger National Forest supervisor; and wilderness management.

 

Agonia Theresa Lauckner interview, 2002.

  • In this interview Agonia Lauckner (1912-2011) discusses her childhood in Minnesota; moving to Montana in 1934; Depression era experiences in Helena; getting involved with Montana Wilderness Association at 50 years of age; recollections of wilderness walks she went on or she served as guide on; benefits to her of walking and hiking as she ages; her views on being politically active; experiences with wildlife; and feelings about preservation of roadless lands.

 

Clif Merritt interview, 2002.

  • In this interview Clif Merritt discusses growing up in Helena Valley; family history in Prickly Pear Valley; enjoying fishing and hunting as a youth; life on family homestead in southeast part of Helena Valley; work for Montana Department of Labor and Industry in 1950s and early 1960s; work for Wilderness Society beginning in 1964; work with Montana Wildlife Federation prior to Montana Wilderness Association; his work as national field director for The Wilderness Society; role of Lee Metcalf and Mike Mansfield as Montana congressman in wilderness legislation; debates over Lincoln Back Country Bill; thoughts about roadless area protections today; stopping road through Jewell Basin in Seeley Swan; establishing Wilderness Walk program; Bunker Creek battle, plan to cut roads and clear cut on the North and Middle Forks of Flathead; and current work supporting wildlife corridor protection.

 

Doris Milner interview, 2002.  

  • In this interview Doris Milner discusses coming to Montana in 1951 to live in Hamilton area where her husband worked at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory; camping with her family in Magruder Corridor near Selway River; work to save this corridor when plans were made to build Colstrip power line towers through that area; joining Montana Wilderness Association in late 1950s; thoughts about Montana Congressional delegation at that time, especially Lee Metcalf; importance of wilderness to older or disabled people; working with United States Forest Service; and changes and similarities in wilderness movement then and now.

 

Ken Baldwin and Florence Baldwin interview, 2002.

  • In this interview Ken and Florence Baldwin discuss their mutual interest in wilderness issues; membership in Montana Wilderness Association (MWA) ; their children and outdoor activities--hiking, fishing, camping; political activism on environmental issues including the Wilderness Act; past presidents of MWA; loss of prime wilderness near Big Sky in 1940s; roadless lands issues; relationship with United States Forest Service; and various wilderness areas they worked on or have concerns about including Gallatin Range, Beartooths, and Sun River.

 

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Photograph Collections

 

Lot 31, Lee Metcalf Photograph Collection, MHS Research Center Photograph Archives.   

 

Link to Finding Aid

        

(3,900 photographic prints and negatives)

  • Lee W. Metcalf (1911-1978) served as a Montana state congressman, assistant state attorney general, and Montana Supreme Court associate justice between 1937 and 1952.  From 1952 to 1961, he was a U.S. Congressman from Montana; in 1961, became a U.S. Senator, serving until his death in 1978. The photographs in this collection depict all aspects of Metcalf’s life and service, including his early life and school days, his time in various Montana state offices, as a U.S. Congressman, and as a U.S. Senator. Images from Metcalf’s personal life are included, showing Metcalf’s ancestors from Maine and Massachusetts, his wife Donna and their son, Metcalf’s parents and their family, and scenes from his regular life outside of public service. The bulk of the collection is focused on the later part of his term as a U.S. Congressman through his many years in the U.S. Senate. Originally housed within Metcalf’s congressional offices, many of these images were used by Metcalf and his office staff from 1953 to 1978 for various publications, television and film recordings, newspaper articles, and election and publicity materials.  This collection contains original photographic prints of Senator Metcalf with various conservation and wilderness leaders from 1953 to 1965, including images of Howard Zahniser, Guy M. Brandborg, Stewart Brandborg, and various Montana conservationists. The finding aid for this collection will be linked through the MHS Shared Library Catalog, and will be posted online on the Northwest Digital Archives by October 2014.

 

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Books

 

Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Contributions in Political Science, No. 64. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982.  

  • Contains two chapters on various attempts to pass versions of a national wilderness bill and the eventual passage of the Wilderness Act, as well as the act’s implementation starting in late 1964. Great information on the political climate at a national level over the wilderness bill debate from the 1950s through the late 1960s.

 

Harvey, Mark. Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act.  Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

 

Leydet, Francois, ed. Tomorrow's Wilderness: Proceeding of the 8th Wilderness Conference, San Francisco, 1963. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1963.

  • Contains transcripts of speeches by various conservation and wilderness bill leaders, including Senator Lee Metcalf, Howard Zahniser, and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, at the Sierra Club’s Wilderness Conference in 1963, the year before the passage of the Wilderness Act.

 

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. Yale University Press, 1982.

 

Sutter, Paul. Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

 

Wilderness Society. Wilderness AmericaA Vision for the Future of the Nation's Wildlands. Gibbs Smith, 1989.

 

Woodruff, Steve, and Don Schwennesen. Montana Wilderness: Discovering the Heritage.  Kansas City, Missouri: Lowell Press, 1984.

  •  This book contains a foreword by Donna Metcalf, wife of Senator Lee Metcalf. The work focuses on Montana’s wilderness areas, describing their origins and expanse.

 

Zahniser, Howard. The Wilderness Writings of Howard Zahniser. Compiled and edited by Mark Harvey. Seattle, WA : University of Washington Press, [2014].

 

Zaslowsky, Dyan. These American Lands: Parks, Wilderness, and the Public Lands. New York: H. Holt, c1986.

 

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State and U.S. Government Documents

 

Montana State University. Your wildlife ... its effective management; subject matter for Montana wildlife federation forums as proposed and presented at the first annual Cooperative conservation training school, U.S.F.S. Remount depot, Ninemile, Mont. Missoula, Montana: Montana State University [University of Montana-Missoula], 1952.

  •  This transcript contains the talks and speeches given as part of a training school on wildlife management in 1952 with the Montana Wildlife Federation—a major state advocate for preservation of wilderness areas—and the U.S. Forest Service at what is now the University of Montana. The transcripts depict differing views from two different agencies about management of wildlife and land, differences in viewpoints which caused the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act to take more than eight years.

 

United States Forest Service. Timber Resources for America's Future. A Summary of the Timber Resource Review. Washington: G.P.O., 1955.

  • This U.S. Forest Service document was produced the year before the introduction of the first wilderness bill in 1956. The situation related to the timber industry, utilities, and harvesting methods by the Forest Service was a great reason for the wilderness bill’s introduction.

 

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. National Wilderness Preservation Act: Hearings Before the Committee On Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate, Eighty-fifth Congress, First Session, On S. 1176, a Bill to Establish On Public Lands of the United States a National Wilderness Preservation System for the Permanent Good of the Whole People, to Provide for the Protection and Administration of the Areas Within This System by the Existing Federal Agencies and for the Gathering and Dissemination of Information to Increase the Knowledge and Appreciation of Wilderness for Its Appropriate Use and Enjoyment by the People, to Establish a Wilderness Preservation Council, and for Other Purposes. June 19 and 20, 1957. Washington: G.P.O., 1957.  

  • These Senate Committee on Interior hearings were held regarding the first introduced version of a national wilderness preservation system bill, proposed originally in 1956. Montana Senator James E. Murray sat on this committee, and he worked with his fellow Montana congressman Rep. Lee Metcalf, who sat on the House Interior Committee, in the early stages of this bill. Both were the original sponsors of the national wilderness preservation system bill.

  

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Serials/Journals

 

A Montanan’s Washington Notebook. Newsletter (Senator James E Murray and Senator Lee Metcalf). 1956-1964.

  •  Senator James E. Murray’s office began publishing with the other members of Montana’s federal congressional delegation a newsletter during congressional sessions. At the time, Montana was only one of three states to not have a state news correspondent in Washington, and Montana’s federal congressmen felt the need to keep their constituents updated on issues that affected residents of the state. The newsletters documented efforts of Montanan congressmen in Washington, D.C., miscellaneous legislation and committee hearings having an impact on Montana, national and state issues of concern to the congressmen, and showing Montanan visitors to the congressmen’s offices.  Senator Metcalf’s office took over the newsletter publication responsibility in January 1961. The newsletters contain many photographs of Senators Murray, Mansfield, and Metcalf, as well as convey the congressmen’s views on issues in Congress. The newsletters are valuable for showing what Representative and later Senator Lee Metcalf was facing, dealing with, and involved in on a weekly basis during the struggle over the national wilderness preservation system bill between 1956 and 1964. Few articles discuss the wilderness bill itself, but the newsletters are useful for offer the researcher context for the time period.  

 

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Newspapers

 

Various articles from 1955 to 1965 on Senator Lee Metcalf and his fight for a national wilderness bill were published regularly in Montana by the following major newspapers:

 

            Montana Standard (Butte), Billings Gazette (Billings), Helena Independent Record (Helena), The Missoulian (Missoula), and Hungry Horse News (Columbia Falls).

 

Several of these newspapers are accessible online at the MHS Research Center Library’s public computer terminals through NewspaperArchive.com. The website contains text-searchable newspapers for several cities in Montana, and includes options to limit years and types of phrases for searching the newspapers. Senator Lee Metcalf made a great many of his statements regarding the issues surrounding the wilderness bill to newspapers. These are the best sources for primary statements by the senator on the Wilderness Act history.

 

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Vertical Subject and Biography Files

 

Metcalf, Lee. MHS Research Center Library.

  • There are three files with copies of period newspaper articles, brochures, fliers, historical   sketches, biographical information, speeches, and other materials containing information on and from Senator Lee Metcalf in the Vertical Files. Several records on the Wilderness Act and wilderness bill legislative efforts are contained in these files. 

 

Wilderness Bills. MHS Research Center Library.

  • Contains copies of newspaper articles and miscellaneous paper records on different wilderness bills passed since the 1950s.

 

 

 

 Montana Historical Society Research Center

 225 North Roberts, P.O. Box 201201, Helena, MT 59620-1201, 406-444-2681, 406-444-2696 (fax)

 mhslibrary@mt.gov

 

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