Pacific Northwest Research Station

Award-winning historian to talk October 25 about Gifford Pinchot and beginning of modern environmentalism

USDA Forest Service
World Forestry Center

Portland, OR: September 13, 2004

Contact:

Sherri Richardson-Dodge, (503) 808-2137

Yasmeen Sands, (503) 808-2239

PORTLAND, Ore. September 13, 2004. Historian Dr. Char Miller will lecture and read from his book about Pinchot, the father of forestry and leader of the environmental movement. The book, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, offers a dynamic and intimate sketch of Pinchot— the first chief of the USDA Forest Service (1898-1910).

This free talk will be held Monday, October 25, at the World Forestry Center, Miller Hall, 4033 SW Canyon Road, Portland, Oregon. The brown-bag lecture is scheduled from 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m. Miller’s presentation is one of 30 being given nationally during the USDA Forest Service’s centennial year celebration. Copies of Miller’s book will be available for purchase and light refreshments will be served. The World Forestry Center is in Washington Park across from the Oregon Zoo, and free parking is available.

Miller will recount the relationship between Pinchot and conservationist John Muir and how their political disagreements and contrasting visions of the use of natural resources set the agenda for the conservation movement.

In addition to advising presidents, Pinchot served two terms as governor of Pennsylvania and later founded the National Conservation Association. The author also examines Gifford Pinchot’s postgraduate education in France and his efforts in promoting the profession of forestry in the United States and in establishing and running the Forest Service.

Miller will also discuss Pinchot’s marriage to feminist Cornelia Bryce and her role in Pinchot’s political radicalization throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Char Miller is professor and chair of the history department at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. First published in 2001, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, is the first Pinchot biography to be published in four decades. It has won five awards and is available in paperback from Island Press Publishers as part of the Pioneers of Conservation series. Dr. Miller’s lecture is sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, the World Forestry Center, Society of American Foresters Portland Chapter, and the Oregon Forest Resources Institute.