author
Gifford Pinchot
1865–1946
A pioneering forester and reform-minded public servant, he helped shape the early conservation movement in the United States. He is best remembered for leading the first U.S. Forest Service and for bringing that same practical, public-minded spirit to Pennsylvania politics.
3 Audiobooks
The Training of a Forester
by Gifford Pinchot
The Fight for Conservation
by Gifford Pinchot
Six Thousand Country Churches
by Charles Otis Gill, Gifford Pinchot
About the author
Born in Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1865, Gifford Pinchot became one of the key figures in American conservation. After graduating from Yale, he studied forestry in Europe at a time when the field was barely established in the United States, then returned determined to make forest management a serious public mission.
Pinchot served as chief of the federal forestry agency that became the U.S. Forest Service, and he worked closely with President Theodore Roosevelt. He argued that natural resources should be used wisely and managed for the long-term benefit of the public, a practical idea that helped define the conservation movement in the early twentieth century.
He later brought that same reform energy into politics, serving two terms as governor of Pennsylvania. Even with his political career, he remained closely identified with forestry and conservation for the rest of his life, and his name is still strongly linked to the idea that public lands should be protected and responsibly managed.