The origins of various holidays is always of special interest to me. I found these two picture books on the origins of Earth Day, both published in 2023! Surprisingly, they do not tell the same story.
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Black Beach: A Community, an Oil Spill, and the Origin of Earth Day
This story is about the Santa Barbara oil spill in California.
“Based on actual events, Black Beach: A Community, an Oil Spill, and the Origin of Earth Day follows Sam and her classmates as they fight back. Sam initially feels powerless watching her parents and neighbors try to clean up the oil spill. But as her awareness grows, she learns she’s not alone in caring for the Earth. The impact of the spill seeps into living rooms and classrooms across the nation. People everywhere are motivated to act, and a movement to protect and celebrate the environment is born.” (description from Amazon)
The endnotes contain: Author’s Note, Selected Bibliography, Timeline, Earth Day Today, and How to Become an Environmental Activist.
The Day the River Caught Fire
At the end of this book, there is an Environmental Timeline in the endnotes. Through this, we learn that the Santa Barbara oil spill happened before the Cuyahoga River caught fire. It seems that both events served as catalysts for reform and became the origins of earth day.
“After the Industrial Revolution in the 1880s, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire almost twenty times, earning Cleveland the nickname “The Mistake on the Lake.” Waste dumping had made fires so routine that local politicians and media didn’t pay them any mind, and other Cleveland residents laughed off their combustible river and even wrote songs about it.”
“But when the river ignited again in June 1969, the national media picked up on the story and added fuel to the fire of the recent environmental movement. A year later, in 1970, President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency—leading to the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts—and the first Earth Day was celebrated. It was a celebration, it was a protest, and it was the beginning of a movement to save our planet.” (description from Amazon)
The endnotes contain: Author’s Note, Environmental Timeline, links to Videos and Organizations, and Further Reading.