Sierra Club

The **Sierra Club** is an environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who became its first president. The Sierra Club primarily operates in the United States; an affiliated organization, Sierra Club Canada, operates in Canada and deals exclusively with Canadian issues.

Traditionally associated with the progressive movement, the club was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world, and currently engages in lobbying politicians to promote environmentalist policies. Recent focuses of the club include promoting sustainable energy, mitigating global warming, and opposing the use of coal. The club is known for its political endorsements, which are often sought after by candidates in local elections; it generally supports liberal and progressive candidates in elections.

The Sierra Club is organized on both a national and local level. The club is divided into large chapters representing large geographic areas, some of which have tens of thousands of members. These chapters are divided into regional groups, and special interest sections, committees, and task forces. While much activity is coordinated at a local level, the Club is a unified organization; decisions made at the national level take precedence.

In addition to political advocacy, the Sierra Club organizes outdoor recreation activities, and has historically been a notable organization for mountaineering and rock climbing in the United States. Members of the Sierra Club pioneered the Yosemite Decimal System of climbing, and were responsible for a substantial amount of the early development of climbing. Much of this activity occurred in the group's namesake Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Club does not set standards for or regulate alpinism, but it organizes wilderness courses, hikes, and occasional alpine expeditions for members. In California, the club, through its outdoor recreation groups, is usually considered the state's analogue to other state mountaineering clubs such as Mazamas or the Colorado Mountain Club.

Journalist Robert Underwood Johnson had worked with John Muir on the successful campaign to create a large Yosemite National Park surrounding the much smaller state park which had been created in 1864. This campaign succeeded in 1890. As early as 1889, Johnson had encouraged Muir to form an "association" to help protect the Sierra Nevada, and preliminary meetings were held to plan the group. Others involved in the early planning included artist William Keith, Willis Linn Jepson, Willard Drake Johnson, Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan.

In May 1892, a group of professors from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University helped Muir and attorney Warren Olney launch the new organization modeled after the eastern Appalachian Mountain Club. The Sierra Club's charter members elected Muir president, an office he held until his death in 1914.[9]

The Club's first goals included establishing Glacier and Mount Rainier national parks, convincing the California legislature to give Yosemite Valley to the U.S. federal government, and preserving California's coastal redwoods.

Muir escorted President Theodore Roosevelt through Yosemite in 1903, and two years later the California legislature ceded Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to the federal government. The Sierra Club won its first lobbying victory with the creation of the country's second national park, after Yellowstone in 1872.