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The first successful oil well in Pennsylvania
This set off an oil "boom" that saw drilling from Ohio to Texas and beyond. This took up the resources and land from the areas being welled, causing damages to the environment. -
Transcontinental Railroads began construction
Huge land grants were used to build the rails, as well as large extractions of the resource steel. With the railroad also came much population, who crowded and overused the environment and wildlife near the lines. Settlers plowed up the tall grass prairies, planted cornfields and used lumbar for their houses and fences. -
The Timber Culture Act
The act gave grants of land to homesteaders if they agreed to plant trees on a quarter of their land. By using the lure of a land grant, the act promotes improving the environment with the planting of trees when many forests were being overused to feed industrialization and urbanization. -
Buffalo are hunted to near extinction.
Employed by the Kansas Pacific Railroad company, "Buffalo Bill" Cody leads the hunt, but soon professional hunters and the sheer amusement hunters on railroads also slaughtered hordes of the once numerous buffalo. -
The Timber and Stone Act
It permitted the cutting of timber on public land to increase the acreage for farm land. This act made forests disappear at a quicker rate as people moved to cut down trees for the cultivation of even more land to keep pace with the ever-growing industrial population. -
The German designer Karl Benz was granted a patent for his internal combustion engine car
This type of car was later adapted in America. The internal combustion car used the explosive combustion of fuel to run, causing the need for greater extraction of fuel and caused pollution to fill the air. -
New York, Philadelphia and Chicago counted over a million people each.
This rapidly growing urbanization in the industrial age concentrated large numbers of people into one area, creating pollution and unsanitary conditions in the environment. But despite these setbacks, urbanization makes it easier to reach out to the population about sanitary and environmental reform. -
Forest Reserve Act
The act set aside public lands as “national forests” under the control of the U.S. Forest service, allowing for the preservation of land from the affects of industrial powers. This act was later expanded by Roosevelt (1901-1909) when he added over 300 million acres as federal forests and national parks. -
The Sierra Club
Created by the naturalist John Muir, the club worked for the preservation and protection of wild lands in order to help save the environment from the rapidly growing industrial population. -
The U.S. becomes the world's top manufacturing nation.
As the U.S. endeavored to produce the most industrial products, the number of mills and factories increased. Along with this increase came a rise in air and water pollution as factories put out smoke,smog and chemicals from their smokestacks. This greatly poisoned the natural environment and the people living in the vicinity of the factories. -
National Reclamation Act
The act said that money raised from the sale of public lands would be used to help fund irrigation programs in the western states such as the building of dams. This promoted a better use of the arid environment with irrigation practices where before, industrialization had torn up the land. But some of the drawbacks to irrigation were the resources and land needed for their construction.
