William Cronon to open Gaylord Nelson Lecture Series

Environmental historian William Cronon will be the inaugural speaker in a lecture series at UW–Madison honoring the legacy of the late Wisconsin governor and U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson.

Cronon, the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at UW–Madison, will speak on “Landscape and Home: A Sense of Place in Wisconsin” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, in the Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium, 816 State Street. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Nelson, a native of Clear Lake, Wis., died in July at age 89. For most of his professional career, he was an unwavering advocate for the environment. Although he is perhaps best known as the founder of Earth Day, first observed on April 22, 1970, his achievements were much more far-reaching.

As a state senator and governor, he repeatedly called attention and applied public policy to issues of land protection, wildlife habitat, and environmental quality. As a three-term member of the U.S. Senate, he championed landmark laws including the Wilderness Act, the National Trails Act, the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the National Environmental Education Act.

He also introduced the first federal legislation to mandate fuel-efficiency standards in automobiles, control strip mining, and ban the use of phosphates in detergents as well as use of the pesticide DDT and the defoliant 2,4,5-T.

After leaving the Senate in 1981, Nelson continued his tireless campaign for environmental stewardship as counselor for the Washington D.C.-based Wilderness Society. In 1995, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Cronon’s lecture is sponsored by the university’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, with support from the Holstrom Environmental Endowment. For more information, contact Tom Sinclair, 263-5599, tksincla@wisc.edu.