Lucille Vinyard

Vinyard planting an evergreen tree in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, 1976

Devald, Bill, “Tree Planting,” Lucille Vinyard Collection, Humboldt State University Library

Article written by Cole Manley

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Born in 1918 in Santa Cruz, California, Lucille Vinyard became known as the “Mother of Redwoods” for her environmental organizing. Her work contributed to the creation of Redwood National Park in 1968 and its subsequent expansion in 1978.¹ The environmental movement in California traces its modern origins to the Save the Redwoods League, established in 1918, and to the work of conservationist John Muir, privileging the stories of white men such as Muir, while downplaying, and often ignoring, leaders such as Vinyard.

After living in Alaska during World War II where she enjoyed the natural beauty of the Yukon, Vinyard returned to California and became active in the Sierra Club during a period of renewed environmental organizing.² The 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring inspired a resurgence of interest in protecting animal and plant species. The Sierra Club and Save the Redwoods League shared an interest in preserving redwood forests. While they disagreed about what land to focus on protecting, the organizations each raised public awareness through media campaigns about threats to the forests. While the environmental movement was becoming stronger, the logging of forests continued. Logging of redwood forests in northern California accelerated during the post-World War II period of housing and economic growth; by the early 1960s, logging had consumed more than 90 percent of all the original redwoods.³

Seeing the ongoing threat to forests, in 1964, Vinyard created a new chapter of the Sierra Club in Arcata, a town in Humboldt County along the North Coast of California. The chapter inspired professors at nearby Humboldt State University to form Citizens for Redwood National Park (CRNP) in 1965, and, together, they battled the timber industry. Throughout this period, Vinyard attended countless meetings and conferences with local activists and state officials, becoming one of the most vocal and influential organizers working to protect remaining forests.⁴ The timber industry responded to Vinyard’s activism by publicizing her license plate number. Logging trucks would follow and tailgate her as she drove. The threat to Vinyard’s safety was so severe that she reportedly had to be “escorted in and out of meetings.”⁵

Despite this danger, Vinyard persisted in her advocacy. In a March 15, 1967 draft letter to the Department of Beaches and Parks in Sacramento, Vinyard stated that the redwoods of the North Coast were “all that remain of the nearly depleted, once great coastal redwood forests, unique enough in character to warrant National Park status, and large enough to meet National Park criteria.”⁶ A year later, Vinyard’s persistence, and the organizing of local and state environmental organizations, led to the establishment of Redwood National Park by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and its expansion by almost 50,000 acres in 1978.⁷ During this time, Vinrad’s work with the Sierra Club continued, and she went on to become a founding member of the Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC) and several other environmental organizations.

The creation of Redwood National Park in 1968 further encouraged Vinyard’s organizing. In a 2001 article in the North Coast Journal Weekly Vinyard recalled that she had only missed three meetings of the regional Coastal Commission in the eight years spanning 1973 to 1981, “watchdogging for the Sierra Club.”⁸ She remained a member of many leading environmental organizations in the US, including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the Audubon Society. Vinyard was an avid hiker and outdoors enthusiast throughout her life. She passed away in December of 2016 at the age of 97.

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Acknowledgements

This project was made possible in part by a grant from the National Park Foundation.
This project was conducted in Partnership with the University of California Davis History Department through the Californian Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, CA# P20AC00946

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¹ “Lucille Vinyard Obituary (1918 - 2016),” Times-Standard, accessed February 13, 2021, https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/times-standard/179651111.

² George Ringwald,”That Awful Woman from Trinidad,” North Coast Journal, June 14, 2001, accessed February 13, 2021, https://www.northcoastjournal.com/061401/cover0614.html.

³ “Area History - Redwood National and State Parks (U.S. National Park Service),” accessed February 13, 2021, https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/historyculture/area-history.htm.

⁴ Lucille Vinyard Journal Collection, Special Collections, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California, accessed January 30, 2021, https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/vinyard/.

⁵ Linda Stansberry, “A Celebration of Life for Lucille Vinyard,” North Coast Journal, May 7, 2016, accessed February 13, 2021, https://www.northcoastjournal.com/NewsBlog/archives/2016/05/07/a-celebration-of-life-for-lucille-vinyard.

⁶ “Summer 1966 Fieldnotes,” Lucille Vinyard Collection, accessed February 13, 2021, https://vinyard.omeka.net/items/show/80.

⁷ “Susie Van Kirk and Lucille Vinyard: Partners in Activism, Friends to the End,” Mad River Union (blog), January 6, 2016, https://madriverunion.com/susie-van-kirk-and-lucille-vinyard-partners-in-activism-friends-to-the-end/.

⁸ Ringwald, “‘That Awful Woman from Trinidad.‘“

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Further Reading:

Unger, Nancy C. Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Lucille Vinyard Journal Collection. Special Collections. Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. Accessed January 30, 2021. https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/vinyard/.

Griffith, Ella. “From the Archives: Women in the Sierra Club.” UC Berkeley Library Update (blog), May 30, 2019. https://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2019/05/30/from-the-archives-women-in-the-sierra-club/