Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865October 4, 1946) was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Republican Party for most of his life, though he joined the Progressive Party for a brief period.
Born into the wealthy Pinchot family, Gifford Pinchot embarked on a career in forestry after graduating from Yale University in 1889. President William McKinley appointed Pinchot as the head of the Division of Forestry in 1898, and Pinchot became the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service after it was established in 1905. Pinchot enjoyed a close relationship with President Theodore Roosevelt, who shared Pinchot's views regarding the importance of conservation. After William Howard Taft succeeded Roosevelt as president, Pinchot was at the center of the Pinchot–Ballinger controversy, a dispute with Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger that led to Pinchot's dismissal. The controversy contributed to the split of the Republican Party and the formation of the Progressive Party prior to the 1912 presidential election. Pinchot supported Roosevelt's Progressive candidacy, but Roosevelt was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Pinchot returned to public office in 1920, becoming the head of the Pennsylvania's forestry division under Governor William Cameron Sproul. He succeeded Sproul by winning the 1922 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election. He won a second term as governor through a victory in the 1930 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, and supported many of the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, Pinchot led the establishment of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, calling it "the best liquor control system in America". He retired from public life after his defeat in the 1938 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, but remained active in the conservation movement until his death in 1946.
Early life and education, 1865—1890 Gifford Pinchot was born in Simsbury, Connecticut, on August 11, 1865.Miller (2001), p. 58 He was named for Hudson River School artist Sanford Robinson Gifford. Pinchot was the oldest child of James W. Pinchot, a successful New York City interior furnishings merchant, and Mary Eno, daughter of one of New York City's wealthiest real estate developers, Amos Eno.Miller (2001), pp. 30–34 James and Mary were both well-connected with prominent Republican Party leaders and former Union generals, including family friend William T. Sherman, and they would frequently aid Pinchot's later political career.Miller (2001), pp. 53, 194 Pinchot's paternal grandfather had migrated from France to the United States in 1816, becoming a merchant and major landowner based in Milford, Pennsylvania.Miller (2001), pp. 20–23 His mother's maternal grandfather, Elisha Phelps, and her uncle, John S. Phelps, both served in Congress.Miller (2001), pp. 39–43 Pinchot had one younger brother, Amos, and one younger sister, Antoinette, who later married British diplomat Alan Johnstone.Miller (2001), pp. 58, 190
Pinchot was educated at home until 1881, when he enrolled in Phillips Exeter Academy.Miller (2001), pp. 58–60 James made conservation a family affair and suggested that Gifford should become a forester, asking him just before he left for Yale in 1885, "How would you like to become a forester?" At Yale, Pinchot became a member of the Skull and Bones society, played on the football team under coach Walter Camp, and volunteered with the YMCA.Miller (2001), pp. 67–70 Pinchot earned a varsity letter and scored two touchdowns as a member of the national champion 1888 Yale football team, which was undefeated and was not scored on.
With the encouragement of his parents, Pinchot continued to pursue the nascent field of forestry after graduating from Yale in 1889.Miller (2001), pp. 71–73 He traveled to Europe, where he met with leading European foresters such as Dietrich Brandis and Wilhelm Philipp Daniel Schlich, who suggested that Pinchot study the French forestry system.Miller (2001), pp. 79–81 Brandis and Schlich had a strong influence on Pinchot, who would later rely heavily upon Brandis' advice in introducing professional forest management in the U.S.America has been the context for both the origins of conservation history and its modern form, environmental history . Asiaticsociety.org.bd. Retrieved on September 1, 2011. Pinchot studied at the French National School of Forestry in Nancy.Miller (2001), pp. 83–90 This is where his formal studies took place, and where he learned the basics of forest economics, law, and science. It was also where he first encountered a professionally managed forest, where, "[The French Forests] were divided at regular intervals by perfectly straight paths and roads at right angle to each other, and they were protected to a degree we in America know nothing about." Pinchot returned to America after thirteen months before completing his curriculum and against the advice of his professors. Pinchot felt that additional training was unnecessary and what mattered was getting the profession of forestry started in America.
Early career, 1890–1910
Early roles
Pinchot landed his first professional forestry position in early 1892, when he became the manager of the forests at George Washington Vanderbilt II's Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.Miller (2001), pp. 101–102 The following year, Pinchot met John Muir, a naturalist who founded the Sierra Club and would become Pinchot's mentor and, later, his rival.Miller (2001), pp. 125–127, 136; Clayton (2019), p. 225 Pinchot worked at Biltmore until 1895, when he fell out with Carl Alwin Schenck and opened a consulting office in New York City.Miller (2001), p. 111 In 1896, he embarked on a tour of the American West with the National Forest Commission.Miller (2001), pp. 129–130 Pinchot disagreed with the commission's final report, which advocated preventing U.S. forest reserves from being used for any commercial purpose; Pinchot instead favored the development of a professional forestry service which would preside over limited commercial activities in forest reserves.Miller (2001), pp. 136–137 In 1897, Pinchot became a special forest agent for the United States Department of the Interior.Miller (2001), p. 134
Lead forester
Head of the Division of Forestry
In 1898, Pinchot became the head of the Division of Forestry, which was part of the United States Department of Agriculture.Miller (2001), p. 138 Pinchot is known for reforming the management and development of forests in the United States and for advocating the conservation of the nation's reserves by planned use and renewal. His approach set him apart from some other leading forestry experts, especially Bernhard E. Fernow and Carl A. Schenck. In contrast to Pinchot's national vision, Fernow advocated a regional approach, while Schenck favored private enterprise effort. Pinchot's main contribution was his leadership in promoting scientific forestry and emphasizing the controlled, profitable use of forests and other natural resources so they would be of maximum benefit to mankind. He coined the term conservation ethic as applied to natural resources. Under his leadership, the number of individuals employed by the Division of Forestry grew from 60 in 1898 to 500 in 1905; he also hired numerous part-time employees who worked only during the summer.Miller (2001), p. 156 The Division of Forestry did not have direct control over the national forest reserves, which were instead assigned to the U.S. Department of Interior, but Pinchot reached an arrangement with the Department of Interior and state agencies to work on reserves.Miller (2001), pp. 155–156
In 1900, Pinchot established the Society of American Foresters, an organization that helped bring credibility to the new profession of forestry, and was part of the broader professionalization movement underway in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Pursuant to the goal of professionalization, the Pinchot family endowed a 2-year graduate-level School of Forestry at Yale University, which is now known as the Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment. It became the third school in the U.S. that trained professional foresters, after the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell and the Biltmore Forest School."The History of Forestry in America", p. 710, by W.N. Sparhawk in Trees: Yearbook of Agriculture, 1949. Washington, D.C. Central to his publicity work was his creation of news for magazines and newspapers.
Chief of the United States Forest Service
Pinchot's friend, Theodore Roosevelt, became president in 1901, and Pinchot became part of the latter's informal "Tennis Cabinet". Pinchot and Roosevelt shared the view that the federal government must act to regulate public lands and provide for the scientific management of public resources.Miller (2001), pp. 147–150 In 1905, Roosevelt and Pinchot convinced Congress to establish the United States Forest Service, an agency charged with overseeing the country's forest reserves.Cooper (1990), p. 49 As the first head of the Forest Service, Pinchot implemented a decentralized structure that empowered local civil servants to make decisions about conservation and forestry.Miller (2001), pp. 156–158
Pinchot's conservation philosophy was influenced by ethnologist William John McGee and utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham,Miller (2001), p. 155 as well as the ethos of the Progressive Era. Like many other Progressive Era reformers, Pinchot emphasized that his field was important primarily for its social utility and could be best understood through scientific methods.Miller (2001), p. 330 He was generally opposed to preservation for the sake of wilderness or scenery, a fact perhaps best illustrated by the important support he offered to the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.The National Parks: America's Best Idea: Historical Figures. PBS. Retrieved on September 1, 2011. Pinchot used the rhetoric of the market economy to disarm critics of efforts to expand the role of government: scientific management of forests and natural resources was profitable. While most of his battles were with timber companies that he thought had too narrow a time horizon, he also battled the forest preservationists like John Muir, who were deeply opposed to commercializing nature.Balogh 2002 Pinchot's policies also aroused opposition from ranchers, who opposed regulation of livestock grazing in public lands.Miller (2001), pp. 151–152, 159
The Roosevelt administration's efforts to regulate public land led to blowback in Congress, which moved to combat "Pinchotism" and reassert control over the Forest Service.Cooper (1990), pp. 110–111 In 1907, Congress passed an act prohibiting the president from creating more forest reserves. With Pinchot's help, President Roosevelt responded by creating 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new National Forests (which became known as "midnight forests") just minutes before he lost the legal power to do so.Miller (2001), pp. 163–164 Despite congressional opposition, Roosevelt, Pinchot, and Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield continued to find ways to protect public land from private development during Roosevelt's last two years in office.Cooper (1990), pp. 111–112 Pinchot hand-picked William Greeley, the son of a Congregational minister, who finished at the top of that first Yale forestry graduating class of 1904, to be the Forest Service's Region 1 forester, with responsibility over 41 million acres (170,000 km2) in 22 National Forests in four western states (all of Montana, much of Idaho, Washington, and a corner of South Dakota).
Fire Storm of 1910 and the descent of the Forest Service