Gaylord Nelson, Father of Earth Day - MINDS@UW Home

Gaylord Nelson’s Environmental Politics
To achieve conservation, attitude change was essential, but no
sufficient; success required solid science, political will, effective
technique, and much education. 71
Curt Meine
It takes all kinds of motives to make a world. If all of us were
capable of beholding the burning bush, there would none left to
grow bushes to burn. Doers and dreamers are the reciprocal parts
of the body politic: each gives meaning and significance to the
other. So also in conservation. Just now, conservation is short of
doers. 72
Gaylord Nelson, Governor of Wisconsin
Aldo Leopold
Gaylord Nelson was a „doer‟ who graduated from San Jose State College
in 1939, and earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1942. 73 He
entered the Army immediately after earning his degree and eventually he
attended Officer‟s Candidate School. After earning his promotion, he served in
the Pacific Theatre on Okinawa in the quartermaster‟s corps. 74 After the war,
Nelson went home to Wisconsin and started practicing law. Carrie Lee Dotson, a
nurse he dated in Okinawa, joined him in Madison in 1946 and “…fit easily into
71 Curt Meine, 97.
72 Aldo Leopold, in Curt Meine, 97.
73 John Heritage to Richard Saltonstall, December 1, 1969. Gaylord Nelson
Papers, 1954-2005. Box 1, Folio 3. Wisconsin State Historical Society, McIntyre
Library, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
74 Bill Christofferson, 40. For information on Nelson‟s civil rights and anti-war
activism, see also Gaylord Nelson Papers, 1954-2005. Box 1, Folios 3 and 4.
Wisconsin State Historical Society, McIntyre Library, University of Wisconsin –
Eau Claire. Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
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