Gifford Pinchot

Governor

• Born: August 11, 1865
• Birthplace: Simsbury, Connecticut
• Died: October 4, 1946
• Place of death: New York, New York

American forester

Pinchot, the first professional forester in the United States, introduced scientific management concepts and practices to private and national forests. A superior administrator, he was chief of the U.S. Forest Service, advocating a national instead of a regional or private vision for America’s forests. He was the first to use the term “conservation” in the context of natural resources, was twice the governor of Pennsylvania, and was the author of numerous articles and books.

Areas of achievement Conservation and environmentalism, science, agriculture, public administration, government and politics

Early Life

Gifford Pinchot (GIHF-urd PIHN-shoh) was born into a family of great wealth. His father, James Pinchot, was the son of Cyrille Désiré Constantin Pinchot, a former Napoleonic army captain who became a lumberman and the owner of a dry goods business and wallpaper firm in his adopted country of the United States. His mother, Mary Jane Eno Pinchot, was an assertive woman from a prominent family. Pinchot, his younger sister Antoinette (Nettie), and brother Amos lived in various places in New York City, summered in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and often visited Europe.

As a child, Pinchot learned to speak French fluently in New York City and Paris. After attending Gibbons and Beah’s private school, he enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire to prepare for Yale University. Tall, attractive, and nicknamed Apollo, he was active at Yale with class leadership and the Yale Literary Magazine. Encouraged by his parents, who were concerned about the current pillage of forests, Pinchot decided to become a forester, even though there were no forestry schools in the country. During his last term at Yale, he spoke with government authorities in Washington about career possibilities in forestry. He first shared his belief in the importance of forestry in his graduation oratory.

After graduation he studied forestry in Europe, first with the founder of tropical forestry in British India, Sir Dietrich Brandis in Bonn, Germany, and then at the École Nationale des Eaux et Forěts (the national school of water and forests) in Nancy. At the school in Nancy he studied silviculture (forest science), economics, and forest law; met Europe’s best foresters; visited model forests; and managed timberlands. When he returned to the United States in December, 1890, no U.S. lands were under systematic forest management, nor were there any professional American foresters. He became the first.

Life’s Work

Pinchot’s career as a forester began in 1892 when he served as consultant for George W. Vanderbilt’s 7,000 acre forest on the Biltmore estate near Ashville, North Carolina. During the several years in Vanderbilt’s employ, Pinchot determined to end the exploitation of forest-lands: He not only improved the condition of the forests but also made them profitable by improving planting and cutting, controlling forest fires, and restricting cattle grazing. By the time he finished his work at Biltmore, Pinchot was established as a forester, and universities were requesting his advice about forestry curricula.

In 1897, Pinchot was asked to examine the country’s forest reserves after a commission appointed by the National Academy of Sciences, at the request of the secretary of the interior, needed a policy for forest protection. In 1898, Pinchot became chief of the Division of Forestry at the Department of Agriculture. Ironically, although the division was responsible for forest management, it had no forests to manage. With his advocacy and influence, the Division of Forestry changed its name to Forest Service in 1905 (but remained within the Department of Agriculture). During this time Pinchot gained a reputation for running his division efficiently, maintaining high standards and high staff morale, and ensuring that the public was informed about forest issues. He remained Forest Service chief until 1910, when he founded and became president of the National Conservation Association.

Complementary to his work with the Forest Service, Pinchot and his parents had established the School of Forestry at Yale in 1900, a gift that helped educate successive leaders of the Forest Service for decades. Pinchot also created the Society of American Foresters, a national scientific and educational organization, in the same year.

As chair of the National Conservation Commission, created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, Pinchot and his colleagues prepared the first national inventory of the nation’s natural resources (published in 1909). He also advocated for forest productivity the forest as a resource but for the good of all. In doing so, he was opposed by some, particularly those in the West, who wanted to see the creation of a protective “park service” at the federal level; those who wanted the federal government to regulate the use of natural resources such as lumber, coal, and water; and conservationists who wanted the wilderness left as wilderness. However, he was supported by Roosevelt, whose concept of environmental stewardship included a strong forestry policy to protect the public domain.

The issue of preservation versus conservation reached a boiling point during the proposal to build the O’Shaughnessy Dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of northern Yosemite National Park. The issue pitted Pinchot against naturalist John Muir, both of whom were vocal in their positions. Pinchot supported building the dam to provide hydroelectric power and water for San Francisco, while Muir and the Sierra Club argued that construction would damage the ecology of the valley. The dam project began in 1913, after Roosevelt’s presidency, with the flooding of the valley, and was completed in 1923. Pinchot felt vindicated.

Ever the committed administrator, Pinchot stayed on as chief forester under President William Howard Taft. However, he and Taft, and particularly Richard A. Ballinger, secretary of the Department of the Interior, soon did not agree about the use of Alaskan coal claims: Pinchot thought the land was being grabbed fraudulently by big industry in betrayal of Roosevelt’s policies. As in the Hetch Hetchy Valley controversy, this political battle, known as the Pinchot-Ballinger affair, was bitterly argued over interpretation of the president’s ability to act on behalf of the public good. Pinchot used this political argument to write his first book, The Fight for Conservation (1910), to advance the philosophy that executive power is a “steward of the public welfare.” More conservative in this interpretation than Roosevelt, Taft felt his authority was undermined by the vituperative Pinchot and thus terminated him in 1910.

Roosevelt had admired the philosophy and dynamism of his chief forester and had in his first state of the union speech introduced conservation as a major new policy of his administration. Because they shared similar philosophies concerning the interpretation of executive stewardship, minimum wage legislation, and woman suffrage, Pinchot supported Roosevelt as a Bull Moose Progressive during the campaign for the 1912 presidential election.

Although Pinchot had enjoyed a serious romantic relationship many years before with Laura Houghteling, who died in 1894, it was not until 1914, when he was forty-nine, that Pinchot married Cornelia Bryce, sixteen years younger and with equally valuable social networks and a sophisticated political mind. They had one child, Gifford (Giff) Bryce Pinchot, who would become another Yale graduate and an environmental advocate.

With his federal service complete, Pinchot became governor of Pennsylvania twice, during 1923-1927 and again in 1931-1935. During this time his work as a forester and politician dovetailed. Believing that the land and its people were key resources and should be treated equitably, he fought for restoration of land and defended the rights of workers, women, and children. As in Washington, Pinchot was recognized as a skilled and innovative administrator: He trimmed the executive branch of Pennsylvania’s government, implemented sound budgetary management, and set up emergency work relief camps to assist the downtrodden.

At seventy-two years old, with his work as governor complete, Pinchot developed a ten-year plan for his remaining years. Among his accomplished goals during this time were the significant revision, with Robert Holdsworth, of The Training of a Forester (first published in 1914), and the writing of his memoir, Breaking New Ground, with Raphael Zon. Pinchot wrote letters, often lobbying Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration on matters of conservation and forestry. Pinchot died of leukemia on October 4, 1946, in New York City. He was eighty-one years old.

Significance

Pinchot achieved eminence not only during his lifetime but subsequently, for he was the country’s first professional forester, introducing scientific forestry and its tenet of preservation through managed use. Through the Yale School of Forestry he promulgated forestry as an academic discipline. His principles, which halted the rampant violation of the land, formed the bedrock of natural resource conservation and were introduced into forestry programs around the country. Indeed, these principles are favored by modern environmentalists.

Building on the progressive principles of preservation and conservation, Pinchot believed he had to oppose discrimination and economic inequality. Toward the end of his life, he encouraged the Roosevelt administration to think globally, and to link peace and conservation. In 1949, in recognition of his dynamic and extensive service to the country, the forestland along the Columbia River in the state of Washington was named for him. The Pinchot Institute for Conservation in Milford, Pennsylvania, commemorates his legacy as well.

Bibliography

Hines, Gary. Midnight Forests: A Story of Gifford Pinchot and Our National Forests. Honesdale, Pa.: Boyds Mills Press, 2005. A thirty-two-page biography of Pinchot, written especially for younger readers. Includes illustrations and a bibliography.

McGeary, M. Nelson. Gifford Pinchot: Forester-Politician. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960. A biography focusing on the themes of forestry and politics; highlights Pinchot’s controversial nature.

Miller, Char. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. Washington, D.C.: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2001. A highly readable biography that relates Pinchot’s work in a politically charged time.

Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1947. New ed. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1998. Pinchot’s autobiography. Begins with a discussion of his choice of forestry as a career, and concludes with his being fired by President Taft. A commemorative edition that includes a new introduction. Photographs.

Pinkett, Harold T. Gifford Pinchot: Private and Public Forester. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970. An intensive study of Pinchot’s career and contributions.

The Use of the National Forests. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1907. Pinchot’s forty-two-page manifesto of sorts not published under his name about the importance of forests for the common good, along with guidelines on their use. Includes an ecological inventory of national forests in the United States, Alaska, and Puerto Rico.

Related Articles in Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century

1901-1940: January 3, 1905: Pinchot Becomes Head of the U.S. Forest Service; January 11, 1908: Roosevelt Withdraws the Grand Canyon from Mining Claims; May 13-15, 1908: Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources; December 19, 1913: U.S. Congress Approves a Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley; August 25, 1916: National Park Service Is Created; February 26, 1917: Mount McKinley National Park Is Created; February 25, 1920: Mineral Act Regulates Public Lands; 1923: Federal Power Commission Disallows Kings River Dams; October, 1923: Teapot Dome Scandal; September, 1933: Marshall Writes The People’s Forests; January, 1937-February, 1940: Adams Lobbies Congress to Preserve Kings Canyon.

1941-1970: 1949: Leopold Publishes A Sand County Almanac; 1963: Udall Publishes The Quiet Crisis; May, 1969: Brower Forms Friends of the Earth.