Review: Green Persuasion: Advertising, Voluntarism, and America’s Public Lands, by Jeffrey K. Stine

Abstract

Those of us born after 1990 may not recognize the cultural connection between ALF (the 1980s animated “Alien Life Form”), Clint Eastwood, and Smokey Bear. But the latter should suggest that it has something to do with public lands stewardship. Indeed, all three—as well as other celebrity spokespersons and cartoon characters—have sought to motivate the American public to protect and maintain US public lands. Their appearances and the strategic marketing behind these volunteer campaigns lie at the heart of Jeffrey K. Stine’s Green Persuasion: Advertising, Voluntarism, and America’s Public Lands. Stine, a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, specializes in environmental history and the history of technology. Green Persuasion is Stine’s latest in a career dedicated to public history of the environment and environmental justice.This concise book examines the political, cultural, and economic underpinnings that drove public information environmental campaigns. Across an introduction, conclusion, and eight brief chapters, Stine traces the evolution of advertisements and “green” voluntarism during select political administrations from the 1910s through the present day. Stine argues that marketing strategies, especially under Republican control, emphasized “personal (rather than governmental) responsibility for looking after the nation’s commonly owned lands” (x). His emphasis on the Reagan and both Bush administrations indicates to readers the enduring influence of this laissez-faire approach on public lands today.Chapter 1 charts how the federal government devoted resources and funding toward public information campaigns beginning in the World War II era. Originally centered on the military and war, the Advertising Council pivoted in the 1940s to disseminating general information on education, health, citizenship, crime, religion, and transportation. This chapter sets the stage for Stine’s following two chapters on public lands voluntarism and the 1953 “Keep America Beautiful” campaign. From social welfare organizations to citizen science projects, Stine synthesizes various voluntary efforts throughout American history. Chapter 3 provides a brief but valuable contribution to public lands historiography as Stine documents the creation of the Student Conservation Association (1964) and Volunteers in Parks program (1970). Meanwhile, Stine underscores the Advertising Council’s ongoing commitment to individual responsibility and lack of governmental intervention. Stine neither implicates nor absolves corporate influence in these first chapters, choosing instead to focus on the rhetorical attempts of the Ad Council to recruit volunteers.Beginning with chapter 4, Stine shifts his attention to the role of presidential administrations in guiding environmental policy and land stewardship. At first glance, the reader may be confused by Stine’s deep dive into Ronald Reagan’s political career, his appointees, and their resolve to dismantle ecological protections. Only toward the end of the chapter does Stine clarify that Reagan’s political decisions set the stage for “Take Pride in America.” This campaign, examined in chapters 5 and 6, “eschewed federal regulations and increased expenditures” as it “played into conservative beliefs that the enlightened self-interest of the private sector offered the ideal approach to public lands stewardship” (53). Stine describes the ways in which “Take Pride” skirted federal accountability and was designed to appear apolitical. Yet environmental organizations frequently clashed with the Reagan administration’s “Take Pride” campaign due to the support it received from off-road vehicle enthusiasts and outdoor recreational organizations.Chapters 7 and 8 shift the narrative to the environmental legacy of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. In 1990, the forty-first president launched the Take Pride in America Act, which established a permanent office in the Department of the Interior. This allowed the office to receive private funds and donations from companies like the American Petroleum Institute, which Stine writes “greenwashed” the corporation’s image (92). Although Stine skims over the Bill Clinton administration, he dedicates the final chapter to George W. Bush and the patriotism that surged following September 11, 2001. The Ad Council harnessed this patriotic energy toward volunteer opportunities at the same time that the Bush administration enabled resource extraction and expansion of off-road vehicles into public lands. Stine touches on the Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump administrations, concluding that “the Take Pride in America program, especially its use and marginalization by different administrations, ultimately reflected a widening partisan divide on environmental matters” (119).Green Persuasion is at its best when it highlights specific advertisements and the appeal of celebrity spokespersons. The book contains twenty-three figures of objects, illustrations, and photographs. Stine relishes in describing the creation of Smokey Bear and the decisions behind the infamous “Crying Indian” advertisement. Illustrated in 1944, Smokey Bear became “one of the most iconic public service advertising symbols of all time” (9). While Smokey’s influence has stood the test of time, public historians today cringe at the sight of the “Crying Indian.” The Ad Council designed this insensitive portrayal of non-Native actor Iron Eyes Cody, dressed in stylized Chippewa clothing, as he sheds a tear at pollution. Stine writes on this and other “Help Fight Pollution” promotional images, which espoused a macho attitude toward public lands stewardship.Because Stine addresses a cross-section of themes in environmental politics, material culture, and public lands stewardship, this book will interest a diverse set of readers. Public historians will enjoy the creativity with which Stine engages the book’s illustrations and photographs. As a result of the book’s excellent photographs and description of the images’ cultural context, largely sourced from the Smithsonian collection, Green Persuasion sometimes reads like a companion piece to an exhibition on public lands advertising. His focus on stewardship recalls Denise Meringolo’s Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). Environmental historians will gain perspective on the role of green voluntarism, but they may find the book repeats similar findings as the scholarship of James Morton Turner in The Promise of Wilderness (University of Washington Press, 2013) or The Republican Reversal (co-authored with Andrew C. Isenberg, Harvard University Press, 2018). The book is roughly only 120 pages long, but Stine provides extensive notes and bibliography so readers can explore further. That Green Persuasion is available online in the public domain makes this useful book accessible for all readers. Though the book does not acknowledge the Joseph R. Biden administration’s “America the Beautiful” initiative, launched in May 2021, it brings historical insight to a longstanding tradition of green voluntarism that spans over a century.