Forester, conservationist, and public official, born in Simsbury, Connecticut, USA. The son of a well-to-do merchant, he was raised in a cosmopolitan atmosphere and studied forestry in France after graduating from Yale (1889). In 1896, as a member of the National Forest Commission, he helped prepare a conservation plan for government woodlands. Two years later he became chief of the US Agriculture Department's Division of Forestry, but was dismissed (1910) in a dispute with his superior, a foe of conservation. This break with President William Taft's administration was among the chief causes for Pinchot's old friend Theodore Roosevelt's leaving the Republican Party, and in 1912 Pinchot helped form the Progressive Party that nominated Roosevelt for president. A non-resident member of the faculty at Yale's School of Forestry (190336), founded with a grant from his father, he was free to enter politics and served two terms as a reform governor of Pennsylvania (Republican, 19226, 19315). His autobiography, Breaking New Ground, appeared the year after his death.
Gifford Bryce Pinchot (August 11, 1865 – October 4, 1946) was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service (1905-1910) and the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania (1923-1927, 1931-1935).
He is famous for reforming the management and development of forests in the United States, and for advocating conservation of the nation's forest reserves by planned use and renewal: "the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield for the service of man."
Education and early life
Gifford graduated from Yale College in 1889, where he was a member of Skull and Bones and then studied as a postgraduate at the French National Forestry School for a year.
Gifford Pinchot's father, James, had made a great fortune from lumbering but regretted the damage his work had done to the land. It was managed by Gifford's brother Amos Pinchot.
The Pinchots thus were set apart from the other leading experts, Bernhard E. Frenow advocated a regional approach and Schenck a private enterprise effort in contrast to the Pinchot national vision.
Forestry policy and institutions
In 1896, Grover Cleveland appointed Pinchot to the National Forest Commission and charged him with developing a plan for the nation’s Western forest reserves. Graves, Pinchot founded the Yale University School of Forestry (now the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) in 1900 and was a professor there from 1903 until 1936.
Pinchot sought to turn public land policy from one that dispersed resources to private holdings to one that maintained federal ownership and management of public land. Pinchot capitalized on his professional expertise to gain adherents in an age when professionalism and science were greatly valued.
Methods
Pinchot used the rhetoric of the market economy to disarm critics of efforts to expand the role of government: scientific management of forests was profitable.
Pinchot rose to national prominence under the patronage of President Theodore Roosevelt. Pinchot developed a plan by which the forests could be developed by private interests, under set terms, in exchange for a fee. Pinchot used massive publicity campaigns to direct national discussions of natural resource management issues. Pinchot issued massive amounts of information and news to the press and public.
Ballinger-Pinchot controversy
Pinchot’s authority was substantially undermined by the election of President William Howard Taft in 1908. Taft later fired Pinchot for speaking out against his policies and those of Richard Ballinger, Secretary of the Interior. Pinchot launched a series of public attacks to discredit Ballinger and force him from office which became known as the Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy. That episode hastened the split in the Republican Party that led to the formation of the Progressive Party, of which Pinchot and his brother were top leaders.
Pinchot ran for Senate in 1914 on the Progressive Party ticket and expressed interest in the Presidency. After his campaign, Pinchot promoted American involvement in World War I, opposing President Woodrow Wilson's neutrality. The Progressives returned to their old parties and Pinchot rejoined the Republicans.
Pinchot founded the National Conservation Association, of which he was president from 1910 to 1925.
Governor of Pennsylvania
With Wilson's re-election in 1916, Pinchot turned to Pennsylvania state politics. Pinchot's aim, however, was to become governor.
Pinchot retired at the end of his term in 1927. Following another unsuccessful attempt at the US Senate, the Pinchots took a seven-month cruise of the South Seas.
In 1930, Pinchot won a second term as governor, battling for regulation of public utilities, relief for the unemployed and construction of paved roads to "get the farmers out of the mud." This was the achievement he was most proud of. In 1935, Pinchot ran unsuccessfully for the Senate a third time. He was survived by his wife, Cornelia Bryce, and his son, Gifford Bryce Pinchot II.
Perhaps because of pride in the first Gifford Pinchot's legacy, the Pinchot family has continued to name their sons Gifford, down to Gifford Pinchot IV.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington, and Gifford Pinchot State Park in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, are named in his honor, as is Pinchot Hall at Penn State University.
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11 months ago
This entry has Pinchot's name wrong. He had no middle name. Gifford Bryce Pinchot was Gifford Pinchot's son, who was born in 1915. His son was not Gifford Bryce Pinchot II. Also, Grover Cleveland did not appoint him to the National Forest Commission. The National Academy of Sciences formed the commission and appointed Pinchot, the only nonmember appointed.