ShmoopTube

00:03

One of the ooh that's right moment of America's westward [two confused cowboys walking together]

00:07

expansion happened when everybody realized they needed wood to build

00:12

houses but where was it going to come from well part of this problem was [vacancy sign in the middle of western desert]

00:16

solved by newly arrived settlers in northwestern California who realized [redwood trees]

00:21

that those giant redwood trees could probably be knocked down and sold for a

00:25

pretty penny because hey there were about two million acres of redwood [lumberjack chops down tree]

00:29

forests so they probably figured that the chopping a few down wouldn't make it

00:33

in and they were right it didn't make a dent in the forest it totaled the place [time passes, forest is now stumps]

00:37

not only were Californians in need of wood to build their homes people on the [house being built on prairie]

00:42

Great Plains where there were hardly any trees were dying for some wood the [lighter flung at man building house]

00:47

plains people's only other option was sod homes basically houses made of grass [man watering grass on rooftop]

00:52

and dirt sounds depressing yes like good even if it does remind us of hobbit hole [Frodo in front of mud house]

00:57

well this need worked out great for Californians looking to make a quick [lumberjack seeing logs turn into money]

01:03

giant lumber industry was born that had got teased at school with that name this

01:09

went on for nearly 60 years until conservation groups finally dug in their [protesters chase lumberjack away]

01:13

heels in the early 20th century they were like okay guys party's over [lumber jack party]

01:17

how about we not completely annihilate some of the oldest trees on the planet

01:22

seriously it's not nice to pick on the elderly so the Save the Redwoods League [protesters chase lumberjack away from old tree]

01:26

was founded to speak for the trees because unfortunately redwoods don't

01:31

speak English we hear they're fluent and Klingon now in a different story the

01:36

do-gooders eventually succeeded in creating some small-scale redwood [old black and white photo of Oregon redwoods]

01:39

Preservation districts like Prairie Creek and del Norte coast unfortunately

01:45

by 1968 when Redwood National Park was created 90% of the original redwood the [old photo showing creation of park]

01:51

California had been chopped down notice that the percentage is actually [cut logs in ditch]

01:55

good compared to the stats on the buffalo nobody ever spoke up for them so [old photo of a hill of buffalo skulls]

01:59

they had a worse time of it also notice that unlike hydraulic mining it wasn't

02:03

the government that stood up for the environment it was a League of concerned

02:07

citizens so the government did step in later an added stamp of approval [protesters and Wilson stamping trees with approval]

02:11

underlay than ever we guess if we look at all

02:14

these crises in order Buffalo to mining to Redwood we can see an evolution of

02:20

American thought toward the environment in the Progressive Era with the Buffalo

02:23

we started with the use it all who cares attitude with mining we adopted a [buffalo shot with nerf darts]

02:28

protection of the land for practical purposes attitude and with redwoods we

02:33

move to protecting wilderness just because well it deserve to exist when [man hugs tree'

02:38

the safe the cockroach's campaign gets started well know we we may have gone [cockroaches protest in front of exterminator building]

02:42

too far there let's get rid of those things they're really bad [cockroaches gets squished by foot'

Full Transcript