Gaylord Nelson: The Man from Clear Lake and Founder of Earth Day

Permanent Exhibit

Senator Gaylord Nelson was born and raised in Clear Lake. After graduating from college, he went on to law school in Madison. He was drafted into the United States Army, and after WWII became involved in politics. Gaylord read about “teach-ins” organized by college students and faculty to raise awareness on campus about the Vietnam War. He proposed the idea of an environmental teach-in, and within a few months the idea of Earth Day had become a nationwide grassroots movement. When the Associated Press and United Press picked up the story, it was quickly supported by millions of people.

A small notice in Time Magazine on October 10 notified millions of Americans about the teach-in. “Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson is convinced that the hottest growth stick in U.S. protest is conservation,” the article titled “American the Befouled” began. “In fact, he has been toiling to make the nation’s campuses erupt next spring — in a giant, peaceful teach-in about environmental evils.”

On April 22, 1970, Gaylord Nelson organized the first environmental "teach in" which became known as Earth Day. More than 50 years later, Earth Day is a worldwide movement.

Growing Up in Clear Lake

Poverty and pollution marred the Nelson’s hometown of Clear Lake. The region’s vast white pine forest fell under the axes of Nelson’s grandparents’ generation, leaving a tattered landscape vulnerable to fire and repellent to capital investment.

The Great Depression brought itinerant laborers to the Nelsons’ doorstep and stirred up radicalism in the county’s farmers, some of whom went on strike in 1933, closing down the local creamery. The Works Progress Administration launched projects in the region, building roads, draining wetlands, and constructing the town’s first sewer system.

Nelson took a job shoveling stone on a WPA crew after graduating from Clear Lake High School in 1934, and he would later regret the destruction of natural habitats and degradation of fresh water he helped bring about in the name of progress.

According to The Man from Clear Lake, Nelson believed that everyone in the world deserved a place as beautiful as Clear Lake, where as a young boy his love for nature was cultivated.

Excerpts from NelsonEarthDay.net