"When Nature Holds the Mastery": the Development of Biocentric Thought in Industrial America
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Honors Program in History (Senior Honors Theses) Department of History 4-20-2007 "When Nature Holds the Mastery": The Development of Biocentric Thought in Industrial America Aviva R. Horrow University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/hist_honors Part of the History Commons Horrow, Aviva R., ""When Nature Holds the Mastery": The Development of Biocentric Thought in Industrial America" (2007). Honors Program in History (Senior Honors Theses). 7. https://repository.upenn.edu/hist_honors/7 A Senior Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Honors in History. Faculty Advisor: Kathy Peiss This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/hist_honors/7 For more information, please contact [email protected]. "When Nature Holds the Mastery": The Development of Biocentric Thought in Industrial America Abstract This thesis explores the concept of "biocentrism" within the context of American environmental thought at the turn of the twentieth century. Biocentrism is the view that all life and elements of the universe are equally valuable and that humanity is not the center of existence. It encourages people to view themselves as part of the greater ecosystem rather than as conquerors of nature. The development of this alternative world view in America begins in mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, during a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization as some Americans began to notice the destruction they wrought on the environment and their growing disconnect with nature. Several individuals during this time introduced the revolutionary idea of biocentrism including: John Muir, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and Edward Payson Evans. This thesis traces the development of their biocentrism philosophies, attributing it to several factors: more mainstream reactions to the changes including the Conservation movement and Preservation movements, new spiritual and religious approaches towards nature, and Darwin's theory of evolution which spurred the development of the field of ecology and the concept of evolving ethics. It draws upon the personal papers, unpublished and published works of thinkers that participated in this dialogue to show how the concept emerged and fits into the greater context of American environmentalism. Keywords biocentrism, ecocentrism, environmental history, American perceptions of nature, John Muir, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Edward Payson Evans, Anna Comstock, Jeanne C. Carr, Charles Darwin, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Hetch-Hetchy, Conservation, Preservation, George Perkins Marsh, Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick Jackson Turner, Gifford Pinchot, Deep Ecology Disciplines History Comments A Senior Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Honors in History. Faculty Advisor: Kathy Peiss This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/hist_honors/7 University of Pennsylvania “When Nature Holds the Mastery”: The Development of Biocentric Thought in Industrial America A senior thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in History by Aviva R. Horrow Philadelphia, PA April 20, 2007 Faculty Advisor: Kathy Peiss Honors Director: Phoebe Kropp For my family— My grandparents My parents My siblings “…The earth and sky stretch on and on With web of law and mystery Yet bear some healing benison To consecrate my sins to me— We find a goodly harmony When nature holds the mastery… …New visions will outlift the race As we identify ourselves in space And achieve the meaning of the whole In some new splendor of the soul;… …I stand within the cosmic sea And dreadless wait my destiny— I stand with bird and beast and tree And all the things unbound and free, For thy and I and all together Pass on in space and time and weather.” --Excerpts from “Outlook,” by Liberty Hyde Bailey, 1911 *** “ Anthropocentric intoxication make[s] human consciousness drunk with itself and forgetful of the bits and pieces that make Homo sapiens possible, like flowering plants, grains, soil, and microorganisms—that is, the ongoing activity of Creation. But a few thoughtful men and women have caught some sense of the deeper meaning of this immense journey and have realized that our lives are inconceivable except on the supposition of cosmological process.” --Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness, 1991 Contents Acknowledgements………………...…..…………..…………………………………………iv Chronology……………………………….…………...………………………………………v Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1: Responses to the Changing American Environment …….......….………….….11 Chapter 2: The Divine in Nature…………………...………....……….………………...…45 Chapter 3: Evolution, Ecology and Ethics………………………..…..……………..…..…84 Conclusion…………………..……………….………..…………………………………....119 Bibliography…………………….……………...…………......………….………………...125 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many people who have helped me to produce the document you have before you. None of this would be possible without the help of my thesis advisor, Professor Kathy Peiss and Honors Thesis Director Professor Phoebe Kropp. I am exceedingly thankful to Professor Peiss for her encouragement, revisions, sagely advice and historical perspective. Much thanks is also due to Professor Kropp for providing guidance and structure for the entire thesis writing process, her quick turnover of my drafts, and her dedication to our entire thesis seminar. I’d also like to thank Professor Sarah Igo for her American Intellectual History and Recent American History courses that provided me with the groundwork for this study and Professor Robert Giegengack for providing me with additional support and a basic understanding of Environmental Science. I’d also like to mention my fellow peer reviewers Amy Rublin and Anton Matytsin who put up with my roughest of drafts, commiserated, and shared this rewarding experience with me. Thanks to a generous grant funded by Mr. Derish M. Wolff and awarded to me by the College Alumni Society through CURF, I was lucky to experience the joys and challenges of archival research. This grant enabled me to travel to the Cornell Rare Manuscript and Archives Collection to research the Liberty Hyde Bailey Papers. Thanks is also due to the Ithaca Police and the Triple A for coming to my rescue during the course of theee travels. I’d like to thank Alisha Deen-Steindler for lending me a variety of books from her personal library, and to the entire Clean Water Action office in Philadelphia for showing me modern day dedication to the protection and preservation of the American environment. I wouldn’t be anywhere without the support of my family. Thanks to my father for valiantly implementing his sharp proofreading skills and teaching me the art of editing, my mother for lending an ear to my ideas and making sure I was well-fed, my brother Ben for providing comic relief and supplying my jukebox, and of course, my sister Ellen—my history graduate student superstar and thesis-writing role model, who empathized with me and calmed me down from the very start to the very end of this project. I am indebted to several wonderful teachers from Akiba Hebrew Academy as well. From the English Department: thanks to Rita Schumann for teaching me how to write a thesis paper and to Tom McLaughlin for helping me to further hone these skills. Thanks also to two former members of the History Department: to Mark Levy for introducing me to Philosophy and inspiring me to prove his theory wrong that all environmentalists are truly anthropocentric at heart. And of course, thanks goes to Harold “Doc” Gorvine, a role model and inspiration, for his passion and honesty, and for showing me that a historian must never stop learning, searching, thinking and asking, “why?” Lastly, I’d like to thank my friends and my wonderful roommates in 803 High Rise North. They put up with my crazy hours, work habits, and whining, and helped to make sure that my senior year was not all work and no play. Chonology 1799: Alexander von Humboldt explores the New World 1820s: John James Audubon comments on destruction and rapidly changing landscape 1831: Edward Payson Evans is born 1836: Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes Nature 1838: John Muir is born 1841: Nathaniel Southgate Shaler is born 1854: Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden 1858: Liberty Hyde Bailey is born 1859: Charles Darwin Origin of Species 1860: 141 Cities in American have 8,000 inhabitants or more 1863- 1903: Correspondence between Jeanne C. Carr and John Muir 1864: George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature Shaler assumes professorship in Geology at Harvard 1867: John Muir leaves his factory job to embark on his wilderness explorations 1868: New York Metropolitan Board of Health reports on unsanitary conditions of the city 1871: Charles Darwin publishes The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex 1875: John Muir publishes “Wild Wool,” in The Overland Monthly 1880: John Muir enters the political arena to campaign for preservation 1887: Aldo Leopold is born 1888: Bailey assumes professorship of horticulture at Cornell 1890: Robert Underwood Johnson, associate editor of Century magazine, publishes Muir’s writings and lobbies for the creation of Yosemite National Park 1892: John Muir founds the Sierra Club 1893: Frederick Jackson Turner publishes “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” 1893: Madison Botanical Garden uses