PRESERVING THE BEAUTY OF THE DESERT Minerva Hamilton Hoyt 1866 1945 Here is your country Cherish these natural wonders cherish the natural resources cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage for your children and your children’s children Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty its riches or its romance Theodore Roosevelt 26th US president 4 Today Joshua Tree National Park in southern California is a beloved and protected area But in the late 1800s many people didn’t appreciate the unique beauty of the desert That is they didn’t until the 1890s when Minerva Hamilton Hoyt came along Born on a cotton plantation in Mississippi Hoyt later moved to California with her husband As she traveled west by train she was awed by the rugged beauty of the desert Soon she began riding her horse through the desert and camping with her maid among the cactuses and Joshua trees When her husband died visiting the desert comforted her in her grief She was determined to protect the land she loved
Hoyt was wealthy and knew important people Still getting politicians and businessmen to support her cause was a challenge She had to convince them the desert was not a wasteland but a special place How do you do that Hoyt organized elaborate exhibitions of desert plants in places like New York and London England Just as she’d hoped visitors were amazed and impressed but she still needed to do more to protect the area now known as Joshua Tree Hoyt hired Stephen Willard a famous landscape photographer to take photos of the desert She sent two albums of those photos to then president Franklin Roosevelt Her plan worked In 1936 Roosevelt signed Proclamation 2193 establishing establishing Joshua Tree National Monument In 1994 Joshua Tree became a national park Minerva Hamilton Hoyt loved the desert She wanted to share its beautiful landscape with others and worked tirelessly to make Joshua Tree a national park TAKE ACTION THE ROOSEVELTS CARE Franklin Delano Roosevelt the 32nd president of the United States became a leader in conservation early in his life and political career He planted trees on his family’s Hyde Park estate As governor of New York State he supported planting trees on abandoned farmlands and as president he created the Civilian Conservation Corps The corps hired unemployed men during the Depression to stop soil erosion and plant trees But he wasn’t the only Roosevelt active in saving natural places Twenty years earlier in 1906 his cousin Theodore Roosevelt the 26th president of the United States created the National Park Service establishing 150 national forests 51 bird reserves 4 national game preserves 5 national parks and 18 national monuments
AN ARTIST SPEAKS OUT Ai Weiwei 1957 There are many ways to protest Some people speak up Some people use social media Some write books and articles And some like Ai Weiwei create art Ai has combined his eye-catching art with powerful words to stand up to the Chinese government’s repression of free speech and its disregard disregard for human rights Some people have described him as the most dangerous artist in the world And if dangerous means an artist who is not afraid to speak against a regime that tries to silence people who disagree with its poli cies then Ai fits the bill As the son of Ai Qing a prominent Chinese poet who was called an enemy of the people for his writing and exiled with his family to labor camps in remote parts of China Ai Weiwei understood how difficult and important important it is to stand up to a tyrannical regime Left Artist and human rights advocate Ai Weiwei holds up porcelain sunflower seeds part of his art exhibition Art is this artist’s way of pointing out injustice in his native China and around the world TAKE ACTION ARTISTS TAKE A STAND In 1937 Pablo Picasso created the painting Guernica after the bombing of a small town in Spain that killed hundreds of innocent people mostly women and children Other artists such as Jacob Lawrence Gordon Parks Banksy Dorothea Lange and Norman Rockwell have portrayed unfairness injustice and suffering through powerful paintings and photographs 7
