Literary reportage bears much of the credit for the success of the environmental movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, helping spur the American public to demand protections of sensitive land and natural wonders, endangered species, and their own health—threatened by polluted air and water. This examines the historical role of investigative, long-form literary journalism in the conservation movement to assess why some environmental reportage carried such public resonance. Examples include Henry David Thoreau’s influence in the creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore and Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s crusade to save the Everglades that culminated in her book, Everglades: River of Grass.