Preserving the Pines: New Jersey and the Origins of Environmentalism

In the early twentieth century, an interconnected web of men and women fought for a better future in Whitesbog Village, a forgotten town in New Jersey's Pine Barrens. And they won.

Before their heroic efforts, air, land, and sea were riddled with pollution with few protections, and hope for a better tomorrow seemed unlikely. When they were done, the 1.1 million acres of the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve became the largest protected and preserved open space on the East Coast.

Telling the story of the origins of the nation's conservation movement, author William J. Lewis chronicles and celebrates the educators and historians who successfully crusaded for a better, cleaner world.