Charles E. Little Papers 1975-1990

Charles E. Little, a native Californian, graduated from Wesleyan University in 1955, and served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Although he began his career as an advertising executive in New York City, Little decided in his mid-thirties to resign from advertising to become a full-time environmental activist, author, journalist, and policy analyst. Since then he has helped pass both federal and state legislation on open space, parks, and agricultural land preservation. He has also held several research and management positions in non-profit organizations and government agencies. These include: executive director of the Open Space Institute in New York, senior associate at the Conservation Foundation in Washington D.C., and head of natural resources policy at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. In 1978, Little established and became president of the American Land Forum in order to develop policy on land conservation.

Little has written a number of books and magazine articles that have led to numerous changes in conservation policy, which include better approaches to cooperative planning for landscape areas, as well as national legislation for farmland protection. Books by Little include: Challenge of the Land (1968), Space for Survival: Blocking the Bulldozer in Urban America (1971), Green Fields Forever: the Conservation Tillage Revolution in America (1987), Greenways for America (1990), Hope for the Land (1992), The Dying of the Trees: the Pandemic in America's Forests (1995), and Discover America: the Smithsonian Book of the National Parks (1995). Little and W. Wendell Fletcher co-authored The American Crisis: Why U.S. Farmland is Being Lost and How citizens and Governments are Trying to Save What is Left (1982). Little edited Louis Bromfield at Malabar: Writings on Farming and country Life (1988). In addition, Little co-edited An Appalachian Tragedy: Air Pollution and Tree Death in the Highland Forest of Eastern North America (1998) with Havard Ayers and Jenny Hager. Little has contributed numerous articles about land conservation, community planning, and natural resources to the following magazines: Smithsonian, Garden, Business and Society Review, Air and Space, Country Journal, and Wilderness, for which he contributed a whole-issue essay on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in 1987. Little has also written pieces for the Capital Ideas department in Harrowsmith, and Conservation Commentary in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. In addition, Little has both edited and published two periodicals: Open Space Action and American Land Forum, the prize-winning magazine that he founded in 1980. He also edited the John Hopkins series American Land Classics. Little currently resides in Kensington, Maryland with his wife, Ila Dawson Little, professor of English literature.

This collection consists of reference materials that Little compiled and used to write his book, Greenways for America (1990), which the Conservation Fund of Washington D.C. commissioned him to write in 1988. Greenways for America represents the first comprehensive compilation of information pertaining to greenways, a result of Little's extensive surveying of national greenways (both on-site and via mail), and countless interviews with individuals whose efforts have made these greenway projects come to fruition. Little defines greenways as (1.) linear open spaces established along natural corridors, such as riverfronts, stream valleys, ridgelines and railroad right-of-ways converted to scenic roads, recreational use, or canals, (2.) natural or landscaped trails for pedestrian or bicycle passage, (3.) open-space connectors that link parks, cultural features, nature reserves, or historic sites with each another and populated areas, and (4.) local strips and linear parks designated as parkways or greenbelts (parkway, a term that Frederick Law Olmsted probably coined, and greenbelt, a British term, are frequently used interchangeably with the term greenway in the United states. According to Little, Edmond Bacon, a landscape designer, likely coined the term greenway, as discussed in William H. Whyte's Securing Open Space for Urban America (1959).

In Greenways for America Little traces the history of the greenway movement both here and abroad. He attributes the present American greenway movement to Olmsted, who designed the grounds for the University of California's Berkley Campus in 1865, as well as the parkways, or green, linear corridors, which Olmsted envisioned cutting through Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1866. Olmsted oversaw several other projects that resulted in preserved strips of parkland for pathways and scenic drives, including the famous Emerald Necklace of Boston, a parkway of open space proposed in 1887. According to Little, the concept and construction of modern greenways took shape in the 1960s in the name of open-space action. The national movement to convert abandoned rails to trails also began in the 1960s. Although efforts to secure open, green spaces declined in the 1970s and early 1980s, the greenway movement experienced a boon in the mid 1980s when a lack of federal funds forced concerned citizens to take matters into their own hands. As a result, proactive Americans have established scores of diverse greenways across the land. In two major chapters Little profiles a number of these greenway projects, and describes the efforts of several people who have created and preserved greenways throughout the United States. Many citizens tout these greenways as sorely needed networks of green that provide exercise, recreation, preservation of natural corridors for wildlife migration, protection of scenic and historic routes from commercial development, economic prosperity and growth, and an improved environment. Little subsequently devotes five chapters to the basic types of greenways: riverfronts and urban river greenways, paths and trails, ecological corridors, scenic drives and historic routes, and greenway network programs. According to Little, the idea of linking greenways together, thus creating a nationwide system of greenways, has become at present an integral component of the movement. Linkage, Little notes, is an important concept to greenway advocates because of its potential to take local grass-roots efforts to a higher level. These advocates believe that the creation of trails and open spaces connecting towns, cities, and parks from one end of the country to the other will eventually build a truly cohesive community, offering both ecological and social benefits for all. Finally, in the closing chapters of his book, Little pragmatically outlines and discusses the step-by-step process of developing greenways, as well as the overarching theme of the greenways imperative: to raise environmental consciousness.

The first series of the collection, Chapter Files, contains reference material and drafts of chapters for Greenways for America. A copy of Little's bibliographic data base search for articles on greenways, as well as the various greenway maps included in the book, are also housed here. The second series, Project Files, consists of professional correspondence, newspapers articles, essays, studies, reports, surveys, design projects, maps, plans, proposals, brochures, flyers, pamphlets, assessments, newsletters, magazine articles, and journals that Little amassed in order to depict the various greenway projects across America. The third series, Reference Files, consists of general reference material, such as reports, foundation lists, magazines, brochures, essays, articles, conference programs, and newsletters. These papers contain information relating to local, state, and national organizations and programs. Reference Files also contains correspondence pertaining to the progression of the greenway projects, and information on related conservation and environmental interest groups.

North Carolina State University does not own copyright to this collection. Individuals obtaining materials from the NC State University Libraries' Special Collections Research Center are responsible for using the works in conformance with United States copyright law as well as any donor restrictions accompanying the materials.

This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.

[Identification of item], Charles E. Little Papers, MC 00214, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

• American Land Forum Records (MC 00271)
• The NC State University Libraries' Greenways Archive

• Treasures of the Greenbelt: A Celebration of the Countryside in the San Francisco Bay Region (1986).
• Whatever Befalls the Earth...Collin County Cares, Collin County Public Works, McKinney, Texas.

Gift of Charles E. Little through George F. Thompson, editor for Johns Hopkins University Press: February 28, 1991.

Gift of Charles E. Little through George F. Thompson, editor for Johns Hopkins University Press: February 28, 1991.