2004/01/01 by Brooks Toliver · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Arts and Humanities · #Environmental Philosophy and Ethics #Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature #American Environmental and Regional History
paper · doi:10.1525/jams.2004.57.2.325
openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
In the early decades of the twentieth century, many Americans harbored mixed feelings toward wilderness. On the one hand, the recent closing of the frontier increased an already strong affection for the nation's remaining open spaces. On the other, the land's potential for development had traditionally determined its value. The result was a contradiction discernable in both the ideology of the National Park Service and the best-known composition about a national park, Ferde Grofè's Grand Canyon Suite (1931). Borrowing from the relatively new field of ecocriticism, I propose several ways of hearing in the work a simultaneous celebration and conquest of the Grand Canyon. The goal is a better historical understanding of a love for wilderness that forever promises to turn wilderness into something else.