Sierra Club

Sierra Club, American organization that promotes environmental conservation. Its headquarters are in Oakland, California.

John Muir in Muir Woods National Monument

The Sierra Club was founded in 1892 by a group of Californians who wished to sponsor wilderness outings in “the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast.” The naturalist John Muir was its first president (1892–1914) and very soon involved the club in political action to further nature conservation. Among its first successes was the defeat of efforts to constrict the size of Yosemite National Park, which in 1905 was transferred from state to federal control.

Ansel Adams: The Tetons and the Snake River

In the early 20th century the club built trails and park buildings, opposed damming and grazing on some public lands, and supported the establishment of the National Park Service (1916) and the California State Park Commission (1927). Landscape photographer Ansel Adams was an active member of the group, popularizing club causes with his nature images.

Though much of its early work was concentrated in California and the West, after mid-century the Sierra Club expanded its efforts nationally, opening an office in Washington, D.C., in 1963. The club enjoyed a series of conservation successes in the Grand Canyon, Great Lakes, Florida Everglades, and Alaskan forests and was encouraged by federal legislation that created the Wilderness Act (1964), the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), and the Clean Air Act (1977). The club also mounted international campaigns related to overpopulation, international trade, and global climate change.

The Sierra Club established a charitable foundation (1960) and a legal defense fund (1971), and it opened chapters in all 50 states. In the first quarter of the 21st century it continued to advocate for environmental protection and to lobby local, state, and federal bodies for environmental legislation. In 2020, inspired by the racial unrest across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, the Sierra Club sought to acknowledge the troubling racist legacy of John Muir and of the organization itself by promising to overhaul its leadership and outreach programs in order to fight racism and work at the intersection of environmentalism and social justice.