Academic literature on the topic 'Wilderness Act (United States)'

<p> In the United States, the history of racism and racial oppression is often unexamined within environmental and preservationist movements. Wilderness preservation and access to nature has been used as a method of reinforcing racial hierarchy and promoting and advancing White agendas. Environmental heroes like John Muir promoted racist viewpoints toward others through a vision of wilderness that was exclusive and inaccessible. National Parks and other wilderness areas displaced the original inhabitants of the land now are representative of nature as a place of exclusion. In order to have success with their environmental goals, White environmentalists need to recognize and account for the racism, imperialism, and nationalism, both intentional and unintentional, that has harmed their movement.</p>

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1999.<br>Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2958. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaves ii-iii. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-65).

Throughout the development of our country attitudes toward wilderness have gradually evolved, reflecting ever changing values and concerns. While colonial man viewed wilderness with fear and distaste and believed the worth of such areas was solely dependent on the economic value of its resources, his modern counterpart has begun to realize that the absolute preservation of wilderness is desirable and necessary in order to protect important inspirational, educational and ecological values generated from these lands. It follows that the federal agency we consider to be one of the largest holders of wilderness lands—the National Park Service—has not always employed wilderness preservation as a major criterion for national park establishment. The intent of this thesis is, thus, to trace the evolution of national attitudes toward wilderness through an examination of the development of the national park system, focusing on the types of parks created in different periods of time and the rationale used to justify park establishment. In this investigation the national park system was divided into five peak periods of establishment. Two parks were then selected from each period for examination as representative case studies. It was found that the parks of each period tended to possess similar physical characteristics, featured objects of preservation and rationale for inclusion into the system. As the park system developed a gradual broadening of concerns was apparent. With the introduction of new rationale and featured objects of preservation from peak to peak, rarely were previous concerns displaced entirely. Thus, the overall development of the park system can be interpreted as an additive process, resulting in the representation of an entire spectrum of environmental concerns by the fifth period of park establishment.<br>Master of Landscape Architecture

American businesses have confronted a changing world economy marked by increasing competition , technological innovation, and instability. Many more women have entered the labor force. Many families' caregiving needs are now being met by family members who also are holding down jobs. This, in turn, has fueled the rising need among employees for workplace policies that enable them to meet the often competing demands of job and home. In 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA of the Act) to provide a national policy that supports families in their efforts to strike a workable balance between the competing demands of the workplace and the home. The objective of this study is to examine the amount of FMLA lost time at one particular company in order to determine a demographic and job characteristic profile of employees who take time away from their jobs for reasons that are protected by the Act.

"Influencing Empire" examines the period of imperial crisis and community disruption which followed the passage of the Stamp Act by Parliament in 1765 to repeal in 1766. Amid fears of a rising national debt, the revenue measure imposed a small tax in the twenty-six British American colonies to defray the expense of postwar military installations in the mainland interior. In response, crowds violently threatened royal officials and their property prompting resignations and the removal of tax documents into protective custody. With the stamped papers removed from circulation by the legislated collection date, the protests largely prevented the payment of the tax. Without stamped documents the courts and customs houses could not legally operate, preventing critical business of the British Empire. This dissertation traces how and why colonists from Nova Scotia to St. Kitts engaged in a series of unprecedented street protests, examining the process of imperial coalition-building. To achieve their goal of repeal, colonists recognized the importance of convincing imperial powerbrokers to act. The design of protests and strategies of dissent appropriated British cultural traditions, contemporary politics, and economic pressure points. Described by past historians as the "prologue to Revolution" and "the first act on the road to independence," this dissertation explores the imperial political and cultural contexts, restores the diverse choices and actions of individuals and communities, and emphasizes contingency to understanding the "perplexing situation" following the Stamp Act. At the forefront of this effort were the activities of British subjects far beyond the thirteen mainland colonies. This dissertation refocuses our understanding of the Stamp Act crisis by restoring the imperial dimensions of the repeal efforts uniting historiography of crowd studies with scholarship on the Caribbean, the British Empire, the American Revolution and the African Diaspora. Countering the tendency to write towards American independence, this study explores contemporaneous sources to demonstrate the rapidly shifting strategies of imperial influence, as well as the variety of political and economic arguments emerging during this brief period. Broadening the study of protest to an imperial scale embeds the emergence of crowd action amid a broader campaign of influence involving communities in the West Indies, England, Scotland, and Ireland as well as the mainland colonies. Far from a break with empire, this dissertation demonstrates the diversity of opinions and experiences both within a crowd and across the British Empire suggesting new avenues for understanding colonial protest strategies and the contours of the subsequent revolutionary coalition. Protest was exceptional and controversial. Critically, the dissertation argues that protest cannot be understood without closely examining the actions and choices of the majority of the population in colonial ports. Free and enslaved people of color, dockside laborers, and itinerant sailors inhabited these port communities dramatically influencing and shaping imperial politics. This dissertation demonstrates how these populations participated in this moment of community disruption, shaping strategies of dissent and influence. Their presence on the streets occurred in a variety of ways both supporting and opposing street protest. The surviving evidence suggests how their actions were manipulated as part of an imperial debate on protest which reveal imperial discourses on class and race. The dissertation argues that these early actions on the streets in the colonial period demonstrate a long-term struggle to define the British body politic. At no point was repeal assured, and contingency plays a central role in this dissertation. This dissertation demonstrates how rapidly shifting political coalitions within England, pressure from colonial agents and interests, as well as members of the crowd all played central roles in the repeal effort. A sympathetic print media spread supportive accounts of crowd action, while royal officials and stamp officers reported a competing narrative of violent mobs. This work overlays these traditional accounts of protest with shipping logs, marine intelligence, government documents, imperial correspondence, and private diaries to shed new light on core dynamics of the protest movement. Using a variety of contemporaneous evidence, the work demonstrates the flow of knowledge and rumor which shaped individual and community decision-making. Ultimately, this archival research prompts a fresh look at the "Stamp Act Crisis" as a critical test of the structure and functioning of the British Empire, revealing how a small tax enabled a period of panic, negotiation, innovation, and creativity.