Cactus Queen: Minerva Hoyt Establishes Joshua Tree National Park
March 5, 2024 by Calkins Creek
Copy provided by the publisher
Minerva Hamilton was born in Mississippi, but moved to Pasadena, California in 1897 after her marriage to Dr. Albert Hoyt. She often traveled into the Mojave Desert and enjoyed looking at the unusual scenery, including the Joshua trees, which didn't grow anywhere else. When the rapid expansion of Los Angeles threatened this unique environment, cutting down the trees for use in Hollywood pictures, Hoyt was sad, and decided to act. She took displays about the desert to the 1928 International Flower Show, winning a gold medal, and continued to tour with the show to raise awareness. She eventually spoke to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of making the area a national park in order to protect it, but the advisor sent to examine the area arrived there on a dismal, rainy day, and decided that the area did not meet the criteria for inclusion. Hoyt started a letter writing campaign urging the government to reconsider, and in 1936, the Joshua Tree National Monument, preserving at least some of the million acres Hoyt had hoped to save.
March 5, 2024 by Calkins Creek
Copy provided by the publisher
Minerva Hamilton was born in Mississippi, but moved to Pasadena, California in 1897 after her marriage to Dr. Albert Hoyt. She often traveled into the Mojave Desert and enjoyed looking at the unusual scenery, including the Joshua trees, which didn't grow anywhere else. When the rapid expansion of Los Angeles threatened this unique environment, cutting down the trees for use in Hollywood pictures, Hoyt was sad, and decided to act. She took displays about the desert to the 1928 International Flower Show, winning a gold medal, and continued to tour with the show to raise awareness. She eventually spoke to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of making the area a national park in order to protect it, but the advisor sent to examine the area arrived there on a dismal, rainy day, and decided that the area did not meet the criteria for inclusion. Hoyt started a letter writing campaign urging the government to reconsider, and in 1936, the Joshua Tree National Monument, preserving at least some of the million acres Hoyt had hoped to save.
The most amusing fact in this was that the Joshua tree may have inspired Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, with its endangered Truffula trees! Early twentieth century development was so rapid, and little thought was given to the native plants and animals or their environments. It's lucky that there were people like Hoyt who saw the importance of these natural spaces and fought for their protection.
Ely's illustrations are vibrant, and well formatted against the text, with plenty of spacing and colorful backgrounds. The facial expressions are great, even if Hoyt's eyebrows follow the Cap'n Crunch model and are placed on top of her hair. There was clearly a lot of research to replicate the clothing of the era as well as the natural environment of the Joshua tree area.
I'd love to do a unit on development with elementary students. Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House would be a heart tugging way to start, and could be followed by books like this, along with Esbaum and Gibbons' Bird Girl, Tucker and Persico's Greta and the Giants, and Winter's The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with the Chimps or Hopkins and McElmurry's The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed A City Forever.
Thanks for this post about the history of Joshua Tree National Park.
ReplyDelete