Nature Fakers and the Hetch Hetchy Valley: Women in the Early Years of the Environmental Preservation Movement

After more than a decade of debate, in 1913 Congress passed a bill authorizing a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley within Yosemite National Park. This thesis re-examines the legislation's approval, specifically focusing on how women and women's clubs affected the Congressional debate. Although women had not yet achieved the right to vote, their advocacy significantly contributed to efforts to defeat the dam. Conversely, their involvement in a debate about wilderness, an important source of American masculine identity, led several members of Congress to charge preservationists with holding a "sentimental" view of nature. Dam opponents were accused of abandoning the logic and reason of efficient natural resource use for an emotional and romanticized conception of nature stereotypically held by women. By doing this, members of Congress were able to dismiss not just the political clout of the women preservationists, but also the ideological and intellectual validity of their objections.