Wilderness preservation grew directly out of the vanishing-frontier lament.

Evidence

Built into the frontier myth from its very beginning was the notion that this crucible of American identity was temporary and would pass away. Those who have celebrated the frontier have almost always looked backward as they did so, mourning an older, simpler, truer world that is about to disappear, forever. That world and all of its attractions, Turner said, depended on free land—on wilderness. Thus, in the myth of the vanishing frontier lay the seeds of wilderness preservation in the United States, for if wild land had been so crucial in the making of the nation, then surely one must save its last remnants as monuments to the American past—and as an insurance policy to protect its future. It is no accident that the movement to set aside national parks and wilderness areas began to gain real momentum at precisely the time that laments about the passing frontier reached their peak. To protect wilderness was in a very real sense to protect the nation’s most sacred myth of origin. — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 29

Categorization

• XREF: Explains the historical timing of national park creation, feeding the eco-justice thread about how ‘protection’ rhetoric has origins in nostalgia for conquest. — connects to: Wilderness is a cultural construction, not an untouched natural sanctuary — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 5; Wilderness protection has historically been affiliated with wealth and class privilege — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 64; The sublime and the frontier jointly remade wilderness into its modern form — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 12 (+2 more)

Related

• Wilderness is a cultural construction, not an untouched natural sanctuary (similarity 0.82)
• The sublime and the frontier jointly remade wilderness into its modern form (similarity 0.81)