Trustees for Conservation records, 1951-1975

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Summary

Creators:
Trustees for Conservation
Abstract:
This collection contains the records of the Trustees for Conservation, a California environmental organization formed in 1954. The records document the legislative and fundraising activity of the Trustees for several major projects and campaigns, including the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, the California State Park System, the San Francisco Bay Shoreline and Point Reyes National Seashore, and opposition to the Echo Park Dam on the Colorado River at the Dinosaur National Monument. Included are correspondence, financial records, legal documents, administrative records and meeting minutes, and program documents from the Trustees for Conservation and other environmental organizations, notably the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club.
Extent:
5.2 Linear Feet (4 cartons, 1 slim document box)
Language:
English and Collection materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Trustees for Conservation records, BANC MSS 74/71 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains the records of the Trustees for Conservation, a California environmental organization formed in 1954. The records document the legislative and fundraising activity of the Trustees for several major projects and campaigns, including the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, the California State Park System, the San Francisco Bay Shoreline and Point Reyes National Seashore, and opposition to the Echo Park Dam on the Colorado River at the Dinosaur National Monument. Included are correspondence, financial records, legal documents, administrative records and meeting minutes, and program documents from the Trustees for Conservation and other environmental organizations, notably the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club.

The collection is arranged into three series:

Series 1 (Correspondence) includes incoming and outgoing correspondence within the organization, with other environmental organizations, general correspondence, and inquiries.

Series 2 (Administrative materials) includes meeting minutes, financial documents and tax forms, legal documents and lobby registration forms, and lists of the leadership.

Series 3 (Program records and publicity materials) includes correspondence, mailers, and documentation relating to various projects and campaigns.

Biographical / historical:

Trustees for Conservation was a California environmental organization formed in 1954, in response to a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation proposal to create a dam on the Green River tributary of the Colorado River, in the Echo Park district of the Dinosaur National Monument. The Echo Park Dam project was opposed by The Sierra Club and other organizations, which created Trustees for Conservation “expressly for the purpose of raising money and spending money in education and legislative activities in which existing conservation organizations felt they could not engage,” after a Supreme Court decision in the same year affirmed the federal government’s power to revoke the tax-exempt status of organizations that spent significant time and resources on lobbying. (1) After the abandonment of the Echo Park project in favor of Glen Canyon Dam, the Trustees continued their involvement in federal and state environmental policy and lobbied for the creation of a National Wilderness Preservation System, Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission, and other park systems in California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The objectives of the organization, according to its by-laws, were to “promote the wise use and conservation of the natural resources” of the U.S. and to secure the “protection and preservation of our National Parks and Monuments” and “wildlife and wilderness areas.”

Trustees for Conservation had its offices in San Francisco. Its membership included leaders of the conservation groups by which it had been created and prominent environmentalists of the time, such as Ansel Adams, Thomas H. Jukes, Clifford V. Heimbucher, Lewis F. Clark, Edgar Wayburn, David Ross Brower (first Executive Director of the Sierra Club and founder of Friends of the Earth, Earth Island Institute, and other environmental organizations), Wallace Stegner, Alfred A. Knopf, Newton B. Drury (fourth director of the American National Park Service and the executive director of the Save-the-Redwoods League), and Howard Zahniser. Howard Zahniser, the primary author of the Wilderness Act of 1964, was also the Washington representative of the Trustees for Conservation during this time, as well as executive secretary and executive director of the Wilderness Society.

1. “Purposes and Objectives of the Trustees for Conservation.” Trustees for Conservation, 1958.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Trustees for Conservation via William J. Losh, Executive Secretary, on September 20, 1973.
Processing information:

Processed by Lori Dedeyan in 2017, with the generous support of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Arrangement:

Arranged to the folder level.

Accruals:

No additions are expected.

Physical location:
Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Trustees for Conservation records, BANC MSS 74/71 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Location of this collection:
University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US
Contact:
510-642-6481
bancref-library@berkeley.edu
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