Nelson also served as a member and advisor to several environmental groups, including the Save Malibu Canyon, Temescal Canyon, and Point Mugu Citizen’s Advisory Committees, and the National Park and Conservation Association, where she worked to secure Topanga, Point Mugu, and Malibu Creek State Parks as recreational areas. She served on the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area advisory commission for ten years where she worked to protect the park from budget cuts and urban development. Nelson worked at the local, state, and federal level to provide testimony, conduct studies, develop conferences and workshops, and contribute to legislation that led to the creation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1978 – the first urban national park of its kind. She co-founded the Friends of the Santa Monica Mountains’ Parks and Seashore in 1963, and its subsequent funding organization, the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore Foundation in 1972. Nelson’s distinguished career as an environmental and community planner, writer, and social and political activist began in the 1960s. Nelson returned to UCLA to earn a Master of Public Administration in 1969. That same year she married Earl Calvin Nelson Jr., a graduate of the University of Southern California. In 1944, Susan graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, and the following Fall enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1948. The family moved to California in 1930, first settling in a bungalow in Hollywood before moving to the Carthay District Center. Nelson was born Susan Louise Barr in Syracuse, New York in 1927. The collection details the work of the Friends of the Santa Monica Mountains' Parks and Seashore and the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore Foundation, which Nelson worked with to realize the dream of an urban park for residents of the greater Los Angeles area. Nelson Collection documents Susan Nelson's professional and personal life, most notably the fundamental role she played in the creation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
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