A beautiful vista, an ancient forest, a flooded valley, and poisoned air. Our relationships with the world around us, from the resources that sustain us, to the surroundings we enjoy or suffer from, to the organisms with which we share these surroundings — together, what we call “the environment” — define who we are. We struggle with what these relationships mean and how we could or should change them. We call this work “environmentalism.” 

Voices for the Environment: A Century of Bay Area Activism charts the evolution of environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area through the voices of activists who helped galvanize public opinion to advance their causes. Throughout the twentieth century, environmental issues came to occupy a prominent place in American society. No state spearheaded that development more than California, and few regions witnessed and guided the evolution of environmentalism like the Bay Area. Long before climate change became an urgent topic, environmental loss and degradation inspired Bay Area residents to organize and take action. From tensions over preservation in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, to the midcentury inclusion of environmental protection in state regulations, to demands to address the disproportionate burdens of pollution and illness that some communities endured, the Bay Area was on the front lines. The historical recordings featured in this educational website offer rare firsthand narratives of these seminal events and the people who led the charge. The interactive content provides both students and the general public a fresh way to explore how the notions of environmentalism evolved and shaped one of America's most noted regions. 

What Is Oral History?

People make sense of the world around them through stories. Oral history is the act of recording testimonies of witnesses to history. By asking people questions about the past, we don’t just gather information—we learn what events, actions, and experiences meant to them. In learning more about the significance of events to individuals from many backgrounds and perspectives, we can start to understand more about the lived experience of history and why people did what they did in a different time. 

Through oral histories, people with different perspectives from different periods will tell you in their own words what their environments meant to them, and of their struggles to change how they related to nature and to one another. Unlike paintings, which express the imagination of the painter, the oral histories in the sections that follow are the testimony of witnesses to history which speak directly to you, across time. We invite you to engage with these voices from the Bay Area over the twentieth century.