The date: 1970, not 1967
The first Earth Day took place on 22 April 1970, not in 1967. It grew out of an idea by Gaylord Nelson, a United States senator from Wisconsin, who proposed a national day of public education and demonstration about the environment. Reports at the time suggested that millions of Americans took part in events across the country, and a figure of around twenty million is often quoted, though such crowd estimates are approximate.
In 1967 there was no Earth Day, but there was growing worry about pollution, pesticides and the loss of wild places. That background is the subject of the second half of this article.
How Earth Day came about
Nelson had worked on environmental issues for years and was frustrated that they received little attention in national politics. In 1969 he announced the idea of a nationwide teach-in on the environment. The model was borrowed from the campus protest movement: teach-ins had been used by students and faculty to discuss and criticise the Vietnam War, and Nelson reportedly saw that the same format could draw people into a new subject.
He recruited a young activist, Denis Hayes, to organise the national effort, and a Republican congressman, Pete McCloskey, joined as a co-chair. The organisers did not run the day from the top. Local groups, schools, colleges and communities arranged their own events, which helps explain why it reached so many people.
The date, a Wednesday in April, was chosen partly because it fell between spring breaks and final exams, so that students could take part. The details of this scheduling are widely reported, but they come from the organisers’ own accounts.
What came before: environmental concern in 1967
The early months of 1970 did not appear from nowhere. By 1967 several strands of concern were visible.
- Pesticides. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, had raised alarm about chemicals such as DDT. In 1967 a group of scientists and lawyers founded the Environmental Defense Fund, which used court cases to challenge DDT use. It is generally described as one of the first organisations to use litigation as its main tool.
- Oil. In March 1967 the tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the southwest coast of England and released a large quantity of crude oil. It was one of the first major spills to reach the news worldwide, and the clean-up efforts drew a great deal of criticism.
- Air and water. American legislation of this period included clean air and clean water laws, and the Air Quality Act was signed in late 1967. These laws were limited in scope, and enforcement was uneven.
- Wilderness and parks. The Wilderness Act of 1964 had set aside protected areas, and environmental organisations such as the Sierra Club were growing in membership.
Lady Bird Johnson’s “beautification” campaign, which focused on roadsides and public spaces, was also part of the national conversation, though it was more about appearance than ecology.
What changed between 1967 and 1970
Several events in 1969 turned concern into a mass movement. A major oil well blowout off Santa Barbara, California, in January 1969 spread oil along the coast and drew national attention. In June 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, polluted with oil and debris, caught fire; this was not the first time the river had burned, but it received wide coverage that year.
The National Environmental Policy Act was signed on 1 January 1970, and the Environmental Protection Agency was created later that year, in December. Earth Day came between these two moments and is often credited with showing politicians how widespread the public concern was. Historians sometimes caution that Earth Day was one factor among many and not the sole cause of the legislation that followed.
Why 1967 gets mentioned
Claims that the first Earth Day happened in 1967 are mistaken. The confusion is understandable, since events such as the founding of the Environmental Defense Fund and the Torrey Canyon spill belong to 1967 and to environmental history. The event normally meant by “the first Earth Day” took place on 22 April 1970.
1967 is better seen as the period when environmental concern was moving from specialists to the public, before anyone had thought of a national day of action.