ABSTRACT
Could one justify protecting areas in Illinois, Nebraska, and Oklahoma as easily as California’s redwood forests or Hawaii’s tropical foliage and beachfronts? What about the myriad other landscapes that comprised the American terrain that highways were making accessible? What sorts of environments were the reformers aiming to conserve? Whose nature counted? And, since aesthetic arguments alone seemed to get nowhere, what were the expected benefits that these scenes would provide? In other words, how did one justify protecting landscapes opened to view by the automobile?
