Photographs of Gifford Pinchot

Collection

Identifier: MS0275

Staff Only

Content Description

The Photographs of Gifford Pinchot contain approximately 30 glass negatives. The images include some of Pinchot operating a movie projector, fishing, working at his desk, and participating in a ceremony for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Negatives are numbered. They are undated, but may be from approximately 1923 to 1935.

Dates

Creation: 1898-1910

Conditions Governing Access

Contact Special Collections for access.

Biographical Sketch

Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) was the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Born in Simsbury, Connecticut, he was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University. After his graduation from Yale in 1889, he went to Europe to study forestry, since the subject was not offered as a course of study at any university in the United States at the time. Pinchot worked in several countries during his time in Europe, but his most notable post was at L'Ecole Nationale Foretière in Nancy, France. He returned to the United States in 1892. Upon his return, Pinchot performed forestry work at Biltmore, the George W. Vanderbilt estate, in North Carolina.

Pinchot's career in forestry was highly decorated. In the early 1900s, he helped found the School of Forestry at Yale, where he was a professor from 1903 to 1936. He served as the head forester for the United States through three presidential administrations, from 1898 to 1910, first as chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, then as chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot and President Theodore Roosevelt, both staunch conservationists, promoted policies to protect America’s natural resources.

In addition to his duties with the Forest Service, Pinchot was an author. His notable works include his Primer for Forestry (1899), The Fight for Conservation (1909), and Breaking New Ground (1947). Pinchot also had a career in politics. He served two separate terms (1923-1927 and 1931-1935) as governor of Pennsylvania, the home state of his father James Pinchot's family, and the location of the family's country estate, Grey Towers.