Gifford Pinchot: Selected Writings

by Gifford Pinchot, Char Miller (Editor)

Overview

The founding chief of the U.S. Forest Service and twice governor of Pennsylvania, Gifford Pinchot was central to the early twentieth-century conservation movement in the United States and the political history and evolution of the Keystone State. This collection of Pinchot’s essays, articles, and letters reveals a gifted public figure whose work and thoughts on the environment, politics, society, and science remain startlingly relevant today.

A learned man and admirably accessible writer, Pinchot showed keen insight on issues as wide-ranging as the rights of women and minorities, war, education, Prohibition, agricultural policy, land use, and the craft of politics. He developed galvanizing arguments against the unregulated exploitation of natural resources, made a clear case for thinking globally but acting locally, railed at the pernicious impact of corporate power on democratic life, and firmly believed that governments were obligated to enhance public health, increase economic opportunity, and sustain the land. Pinchot’s policy accomplishments—including the first clean-water legislation in Pennsylvania and the nation—speak to his effectiveness as a communicator and a politician. His observations on environmental issues were exceptionally prescient, as they anticipated the dilemmas currently confronting those who shape environmental public policy.

Introduced and annotated by environmental historian Char Miller, this is the only comprehensive collection of Pinchot’s writings. Those interested in the history of conservation, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, American politics, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will find this book invaluable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271078410
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	04/27/2017
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Char Miller is W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. He has published dozens of books, including Seeking the Greatest Good: The Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot; Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism; and, with V. Alaric Sample and R. Patrick Bixler, Forest Conservation in the Anthropocene.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

Forests, Forestry and Foresters

Government Forestry Abroad, 1891

The Forests of Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne Park in Northern New York, 1893

A Plan to Save the Forests, 1895

In the Philippine Forests, 1903

Dear Forester, 1905

The Proposed Eastern Forest Reserves, 1906

Speech to the Denver Lands Convention, 1907

The ABC of Conservation, 1909

Mr. Pinchot on Forest Fires, 1910

Roosevelt’s Part in Forestry, 1919

National or State Control of Forest Devastation, 1920

Letter to Foresters, 1930

Old Evils in New Clothes, 1937

War & Peace

North American Conservation Conference, 1909

England in War, 1915

Preparedness and Common Sense, 1916

Agriculture Policy in Wartime, 1917

A Forest Devastation Warning, 1925

Conservation as a Foundation for Permanent Peace, 1940

Governing the Keystone State

The Reclamation of Pennsylvania’s Desert, 1920

The Influence of Women in Politics, 1922

Inaugural Address, 1923

The Blazed Trail of Forest Depletion, 1923

Why I Believe in Enforcing Prohibition, 1923

Old Age Assistance in Pennsylvania, 1924

Politicians or the People? 1926

Inaugural Address, 1931

The Case for Federal Relief, 1932

Lifting Farmers Out of the Mud, 1932

Liquor Control in the United States: The State Store Plan, 1934

Pennsylvania State Forests, 1942

Water, Energy, and Power

What are we going to do about Coal in Alaska? 1911

Testimony on the Hetch Hetchy Dam, 1913

Muscle Shoals, 1921

Giant Power, 1924

Prevention First, 1927

The Power Monopoly: Its Makeup and Menace, 1928

The Long Struggle for Effective Water Power Legislation, 1945

Natural Moments

One Afternoon at Pelican Bay, 1897

Swordfishing, 1912

South Seas Reflections, 1930

Two’s Company, 1936

Time Like an Ever Rolling Stream, 1936

Acknowledgements

Index

Editorial Reviews

Gifford Pinchot: Selected Writings has resurrected a number of primary sources and offered them in the service of researchers and scholars. Pinchot’s unedited voice and opinions give a rare glimpse into one of America’s most significant figures. The collection and Char Miller’s commentary deserve and will no doubt receive a strong welcome from researchers of the early twentieth century and environmental history.”

—Jameson Karns Environmental History

“There are [no other books] that have better captured the full depth and complexity of Gifford Pinchot, which Miller has skillfully and respectfully afforded Pinchot an opportunity to convey in his own words.”

—V. Alaric Sample Journal of Forestry

“One might say that many of [Pinchot’s] opinions (spoken or written in the earlier parts of the 1900s) are contemporary and suited for analysis today. Highly recommended for libraries, schools, and personal libraries.”

—Al Holliday Pennsylvania Magazine

“A valuable contribution that will significantly enhance our knowledge and awareness of one of the nation’s leading intellectuals in land use. Char Miller has thoughtfully collected and organized the writings that capture the ideas and development of arguably the most important mind in the American conservation tradition.”

—Brian C. Black, author of Gettysburg Contested and Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History

“Despite Gifford Pinchot’s high-profile reputation as a founder of American conservation, most scholars have likely read few of his own writings. With these well-chosen documents from Pinchot's own hand, Char Miller provides a window onto Pinchot’s thinking about rivers, soils, minerals, agriculture, forestry, and public stewardship of natural resources during a time of sweeping change.”

—Mark Harvey, author of Wilderness Forever

“Gifford Pinchot: Selected Writings provides great insight into the conservation movement, Theodore Roosevelt-style progressivism, and Pennsylvania politics.”

—J. Wesley Leckrone Commonwealth

From the Publisher