Gifford Pinchot and Environmental Conservation :: essays research papers

Gifford PinchotGifford Pinchot was one of Americas leading advocates of environmental conservation at the turn of the twentieth century. Born into wealth and endowed with imagination and a love of nature, he shared his money, possessions and intellect to further the causes of the common level-headed. It was at Grey Grey Towers that James Pinchot first encouraged his son to explore the profession of fo backup manry. But such training did not yet exist in the United States, so, after graduating from Yale University in 1889, Gifford went abroad to study at LEcole Nationale Forestiere in Nancy, France. With equal fervor Pinchot set to work. In the next two decades he raised forestry and conservation of all our natural resources from an unknown experiment to a nationwide movement. He became tip of the Division of Forestry in 1898 and under President Theodore Roosevelt was named Chief Forester of the redefined U.S. Forest Service. National forest management was guided by Pinchots princ iple, the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. His magnetic personal leadership inspired and ignited the new organization. During his government service, the number of national forests increased from 32 in 1898 to 149 in 1910 for a total of 193 million acres. Pinchot and Roosevelt together made conservation public issue and national policy. Roosevelt considered the enactment of a conservation schedule his greatest contribution to American domestic policy. Gifford Pinchot was born at Simsbury, Connecticut, on August 11, 1865, in a house recently purchased by his grandfather, Amos R. Eno. The home had earlier been owned by Giffords great grandfather, Elisha Phelps, a distinguished politician who served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1820s. Gifford grew up spending his early summers with relatives in Connecticut and the rest of his time in New York City. Because of his fathers business interests abroad, the family traveled extensively while Gifford was a child. He prepared for college at Phillips Exeter Academy, and in the fall of 1885, entered Yale University. Deciding to copy forestry, and finding no such beast at Yale, he left for Europe after graduation to pursue his dream. When Roosevelt failed to win the Republican presidential nominating speech from Taft in 1912, Pinchot took an active role in founding the new Progressive Party, commonly known as the Bull Moose Party.