University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1976 Saving the earth : a study of membership in the Sierra Club Stan Walthall The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Walthall, Stan, "Saving the earth : a study of membership in the Sierra Club" (1976). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 8388. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/8388 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SAVING THE EARTH: A STUDY OF MEMBERSHIP IN THE SIERRA CLUB by Stan Walthall B.A., Eastern Montana College, 1973 Presented in partial fulfillments of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE University of Montana 1976 Approved by )chalirman. Board of Examiner,s Cochairman, Board ofExaminers D e^r^i^d% ^ School Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: EP39189 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction Is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Oissartation PliblisWrvg UMI EP39189 Published by ProQuest LLC (2013). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest* ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 -1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Walthall, Stan, M.S., 1976 Environmental Studies Saving the Earth: A Study^^embership in, the Sierra Club (149 pp.) Directors: Jon J. Driessen^nd Lee Drummorw This study was undertaken to id e n tify and describe those views which members of the Sierra Club, a national environmental organi­ zation, use to identify, interpret and take action in their every­ day lives as a matter of routine. The emphasis of this study is on describing those essential characteristics of belonging which members themselves describe and explain. As the purpose of this study was to identify and describe those essential characteristics of membership, an ethnographic approach stressing the use of interviews was used. Data was gathered by participating in both an intimate and meaningful way in the Sierra Club and in the lives of members so as to share in th e ir meanings and come to know the club as they themselves have come to know i t . The res u lt of this study is an account of members' expressed methods for typifying, interpreting, and taking action on their world as defined by their natural view and commitment to act. The natural view or sense of Earth deals with members' assumptions about the relationship of man to nature, the knowledge members share about nature and their methods of typifying and categorizing th e ir world and therefore come to know and act on i t . The second component of th e ir sense of belonging deals with members' commit­ ment to act. Both components of the sense of belonging were ordered concerning the orientation the member has expressed to the natural view and commitment to act. Finally this study takes up members' expressions of belonging as they talk about the application of the sense of belonging to their routine everyday activities and the correlation between those activities and their individual position within the Sierra Club. n Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT........................................................................................................ i i LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................... v Chapter I INTRODUCTION............................................................................................. 1 Purpose History of the Study and Procedures I I HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION OF THE SIERRA CLUB.............................. 13 The Transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau John Muir The Yosemite Valley Hetch Hetchy Dinosaur National Monument Structure and Organization of the Sierra Club I I I MEMBERSHIP.................................................................................................. 35 Membership as a Constitutive Accomplishment Membership as a Practical Accomplishment IV THE NATURAL VIEW........................................................................................ 42 Homo-centric Assumptions About Nature Bio-centric Assumptions About Nature Stock of Knowledge V THE COMMITMENT TO ACT.......................................................................... 67 Getting Involved Being Involved A Paradigm of Membership VI EXPRESSIONS OF MEMBERSHIP................................................................... 89 Kinds of Things Members Do to Save the Earth Organizational Things Private Things i i i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Correlation between Instances of Membership and the Sense of Belonging V II SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION........................................................................HO BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................ 118 Selected References in Socioloogy Selected References on the Environmental Movement and the Sierra Club APPENDIX.....................................................................................................................123 Topical Questions for Interviews Biographies of Key Informants Selected Examples of Narratives from Key Informants Transcripts Aileen Caroline John Richard IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST Of FIGURES Figure Page 1. Typification of Members in the Sierra Club According to Their Sense of Earth and Sense of A c tio n ...................................................................................................81 2. Relative Positions and Direction of Movement of Members in Relation to one Another According to Their Sense of Earth .................................................................. 82 3. Relative Positions and Direction of Movement of Members in Relation to one Another According to Their Sense of Action ......................................................................84 4. Showing the Relative Positions of Members in The Sense of Earth and Sense of Action Typification Scheme .......................................................................... 87 5. Relative Position and Direction of Movement of Members According to Their Expressions of Belonging as Compared to Their Positions in the Sense of Belonging........................................................................108 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, may be regarded as the official beginning of the "environmental movement," with activities throughout the country concerned with heightening people's awareness of their continuing degradation of the quality of life. This date also marks the expansion o f the much older conservation movement whose major concern was the preservation of natural areas, such as wilderness, for th e ir unique features or scenic beauty. The old organizations of the conservation movement, such as the Audubon Society, the National W ildlife Federation, the Wilderness Society, and the Sierra Club became the back­ bone of the new environmentalism. The Audubon Society and the Sierra Club expanded th e ir areas of concern from a basic orientation towards wildness and w ildlife to include other problems such as pollution, overpopulation, natural resource use, problems of development, energy, and the oceans. New groups were also being formed such as Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Defense Fund whidi were totally environmental in nature and without the traditions of the older conser­ vation movement. Both types o f groups are now fused together to form the Environmental Movement. The movement is composed of both individuals and groups whose aim is to change the relationship between our social systems and the natural environment. If one assumes as does William Bryan that: 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Environmental problems constitute one dimension of social ills that threaten the goals of social and ecological con­ straints of "this spaceship earth," then environmentalists are, therefore, social a c tiv is ts , with varying degrees of commitment toward affecting change consistent with such eco­ logical and social goals.! Groups and individuals working toward this end may then be defined as i part of the environmental movement. Herbert Blumer has stated that; A